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Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-
1661. J
Letters of the Rev. Samuelj
Rntherford
/
LETTERS
OF THE
REV. SAMUEL RUTHERFOPiD,
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AT ST. ANDREw's,
A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
REV. A. A. BONAR,
ArXHOR OF THE MEMOIR OF ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEVNE.
" Rutherford's Letters is one of my classics. Were trutii the beam, I have no doubt, that if Homer,
and Virgil, and Horace, and all that the world has agreed to idolize, were weighed against that book,
they would be lighter than vanity." — Cecil.
NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
No. 285 BROADWAY.
1850.
CONTENTS,
Advertisement vii
Sketch of Samuel Rutherford and his Letters ix
LETTER PAGE
1. To Marion Macknaught 31
2. To a Gentlewoman 31
3. To a Christian Gentlewoman... 32
4. To Lady Kenmure 34
5. To the same 36
6. To the same 38
7. To Marion Macknaught 39
8. To Lady Kenmure 40
9. To the same 42
10. To Marion Macknaught 44
11. To the same 47
12. To the same 48
13. To the same 49
14. To the same 51
15. To Lady Kenmure 51
16. To the same 53
17. To the same 56
18. Tothesame 58
19. To Marion Macknaught 59
20. To the same 62
21. To the same 64
22. To the same 65
23. To the same 66
24. To Lady Kenmure 67
25. To the same 70
26. To the same 71
27. To Marion Macknaught 73
28. To Lady Kenmure 74
29. To the same 75
30. To Marion Macknaught 77
31. To the same 78
32. To the same 79
33. To Lady Kenmure 80
34. To Marion Macknaught 82
35. To Lady Kenmure 82
36. To Marion Macknaught 84
37. To Lady Kenmure 85
38. To the same 87
39. To Marion Macknaught 87
40. To the same 89
41. To the same 91
42. To the same 91
43. To the same 93
44. To the same 95
45. To the same 96
46. To the same 97
47. To the same 98
48. To the same 99
49. To the same 100
50. Tothesame 101
LETTER PAGE
5 1 . To Marion Macknaught 102
52. To the same 102
53. To Earlston, Elder 103
54. To Marion Macknaught 105
55. To Lady Kenmure 106
56. To the same 107
57. To Marion Macknaught 108
58. To the same Ill
59. Tothesame 112
60. To the same 113
61. To Lady Kenmure 114
62. To Lady Culross 115
63. To Mr. Robert Cunningham ... 117
64. To Alexander Gordon 119
65. To Robert Gordon 120
66. To the same 120
67. To William Fullerton 121
68. To his Parishioners at Anwoth. 122
69. To Lady Kenmure 124
70. To the same 126
71. To Hugh Mackail 128
72. To John Fleming 129
73. To Earlston, Elder 130
74. To Lady Culross 131
75. To William Gordon 132
76. To John Kennedy 134
77. To Lord Boyd 135
78. To Margaret Ballantyne 136
79. To Robert Gordon 138
80. To Marion Macknaught 140
81. To Mr. John Meine 140
82. To Cardoness, Elder 141
83. To the Earl of Lothian 144
84. To Jean Brown 146
85. To John Kennedy 148
86. To Elizabeth Kennedy 150
87. To Jonet Kennedy 152
88. To a Christian Gentlewoman... 153
89. To Lord Craighall 155
90. To Ji.hn Kennedy 157
91. To Mr. Robert Blair 159
92. To Mr. John Livinsgton 161
93. To Mr. Ephraim Mel vin 1 62
94. To Robert Gordon 163
95. To Lady Kenmure 166
96. To the same 167
97. To the same 168
98. To the same 169
99. To Alexander Gordon 170
100. To Mr. Alexander Colville 172
IV
CONTENTS.
101. To Earlston, Younger 173
102. To Lady Cardoness 175
103. To Jonet Macculloch 176
104. To Alexander Gordon 177
105. To Lady Cardoness 178
106. To Lady Kenmure 179
107. To a Gentlewoman 181
108. To Lady Kenmure 182
109. To Lady Boyd 184
110. To Lady Ka'skiberry 185
111. To Lady Earlston .". 186
112. To Mr. "David Dickson 187
113. To Jean Brown 188
114. To Mr. John Fergushill 189
115. To Mr. Robert Douglas 190
116. To William Rigge 191
117. To Mr. Alexander Henderson .. 192
118. To Lord Loudon 193
119. To Mr. William Dalgleish 195
120. To Mr. Hugh Mackaii 196
121. To Lady Boyd 197
122. To Mr. David Dickson 199
123. To Mr. Matthew Mowat 200
124. To William Halliday 202
125. To a Gentlewoman 203
126. To John Gordon, Younger 204
127. To John Gordon, Elder 205
128. To Lady Forret 200
129. To Marion Macknaught 207
130. To John Carsen 207
131. To Lady Boyd 208
132. To the Earl of Cassillis 210
133. To Robert Gordon 211
134. To John Kennedy 212
135. To Jean Brown 214
136. To Jean Macmillan 216
137. To Lady Busbie 216
138. To John Ewart 218
139. To William Fullerton 219
140. To Robert Glcndinning 219
141. To William Glendinning 221
142. To Mr. Hugh Henderson 221
143. To the Earl of Cassillis 222
144. To Lord Balmerino 224
145. To Lady Mar, Younger 225
146. To James Macadam 225
147. To William Livingston 226
148. To Williaui Gordon 227
149. To Mr. George Gillespie 228
150. To Jean Gordon 229
151. To Mr. James Bruce 230
152. To John Gordon 230
153. To Lady Hallliill 231
154. To John Osburn 232
155. To John Henderson 233
156. To John Meine 234
157. To Mr. Thomas Garven 234
158. To Bethaia Aird 236
159. To Alexander Gordon 237
160. To Grizzel Fullerton 237
161. To Patrick Carsen 238
162. To Carlton 238
163. To Lady Busbie 240
164. To John Fleming 242
166. To Alexander Gordon 244
LETTER PAGB
166. To Lady Boyd 246
167. To Mr. David Dickson 248
168. To the Laird of Carlton 249
1G9. To Robert Gordon 251
170. To the Laird of Moncrieff. 253
171. To John Clark 255
172. To Cardoness, Elder 256
173. To Cardoness, Younger 258
174. To Lord Craighall 259
175. To John Laurie 262
176. To Carlton 264
177. To Marion Macknaught 267
178. To Lady Culross 269
1 79. To Mr. John Nevay 271
180. To John Gordon, Elder 274
181. To Earlston, Younger 278
182. To Alexander Gordon 281
183. To Mr. J. R 284
184. To Mr. William Dalgleish 286
185. To Marion Macknaught 289
186. To John Gordon 290
187. To Mr. Hugh Henderson 292
188. To Lady Largirie 293
189. To Earlston, Younger 294
190. To Mr. William Dalgleish 296
191. To the Laird ofCally 298
192. To John Gordon, Younger 299
193. To Robert Gordon 301
194. To Alexander Gordon 303
195. To Robert Stuart 305
196. To Lady Gaitgirth 308
197. To Mr. John Fergushill 309
198. To John Stuart 311
199. ToCarsluth 313
200. To Cassincarrie 315
201. To Lady Cardoness 317
202. To Sibylla Macadam 318
203. To the Laird of Cally 319
204. To William Gordon 321
205. To Margaret Fullerton 323
206. To Lady Kenmure 324
207. To the same 325
208. To John Henderson 328
209. To Mr. Alexander Colville 328
210. To Mr. John Nevay 329
211. To Lady Boyd 330
212. To William Glendinning 332
213. To Robert Lennox 333
214. To Mr. James Hamilton 335
215. To Mistress Stuart 337
216. To Mr. Hugh Mackaii 338
217. To Alexander Gordon 340
2)8. To John Bell. Elder 341
219. To Mr. John Row 342
220. To Lord Craighall 343
221 . To Marion Macknaught 343
222. To Lady Culross 344
223. To Alexander Gordon 346
224. To Fulwood, Younger 348
225. To his Parishioners 349
226. To Lady Kilconquhair 355
227. To Lord Craighall 359
228. To Mr. James F'leming 361
229. To Mr. Hugh Mackaii 363
230. To Lady Kenmure 364
CONTENTS.
LETTER PACK
231. To Lord Lindsay 366
232. To Lord Boyd 368
233. To Fulk Elies 371
234. To James Lindsay 373
233. To Lord Craighall 376
236. To Mr. James Hamilton 377
237. To the Laird of Gaitgirth 378
238. To Lady Gaitgirth 379
239. To Mr. Matthew Mowat 380
240. To Mr. John Maine 382
24L To John Fleming 382
242. To Lady Rowallan ,383
243. To Marion Macknaught 384
244. To the same 385
245. To Lady Boyd 387
246. To Mr. Thomas Garven 389
217. To Jonet Kennedy 380
248. To Margaret Reid 391
249. To James Bautie 392
250. To John Stuart 396
251 . To the same 399
252. To the same 400
253. To Lady Busbie 403
254. To Ninian Mure 404
255. To Mr. Thomas Garven 405
256. To the Earl of Cassillis 406
257. To Ladv Largirie 408
258. To Lady Dungueigh 409
259. To Jonet Macculloch 410
260. To Mr. George Gillespie 411
261. To Mr. Robert Blair 411
262. To Lady Carlton 413
263. To William Rigge 414
264. To Lady Craighall 416
265. To Lord Loudon 417
266. To Mr. David Dickson 420
267. To Alexander Gordon 421
268. To Lady Kilconquhair 422
269. To Robert Lennox 423
270. To Marion Macknaught 425
27 1 . To Thomas Corbet 425
272. To Mr. George Dunbar 42S
273. To John Fleming 428
274. To WiUiam Glendinning 428
275. To Earlston, Younger 429
276. To John Gordon 430
277. To William Rigge 432
278. To James Murray 433
279. To Mr. John Fergushill 433
280. To William Glendinning 436
281. To Marion Macknaught 438
282. To Lady Robertland 438
283. To Lord Loudon 440
284. To Professors ofChrist in Ireland 442
285. To Robert Gordon 448
286. To Parishioners of Kilmalcolm. 451
287. To Lady Kenmure 456
28S. To Persecuted Church in Ireland 458
289. To Dr. Alexander Leighton 464
290. To Mr. Henry Stuart, etc 466
291. To Mrs. Pont 471
LKTTER PAOE
292. To Mr. James Wilson 473
293. To Lady Boyd 475
294. To John Fenwick 477
295. To Peter Stirhng 481
296. To Lady Fingask 482
297. To Mr. David Dickson 484
298. To Lady Boyd 485
299. To Agnes Macmath 488
300. To Mr. IV] atthew Mowat 489
301 . To Lady Kenmure 490
302. To Lady Boyd 491
303. To James Murray's Wife 492
304. To Lady Kenmure 493
305. To the same 494
306. To Lady Boyd 495
307. To Mistress Taylor 496
308. To Barbara Hamilton 498
309. To Mistress Hume 500
310. To Lady Kenmure 501
311. To Barbara Hamilton 502
312 To a Christian Friend 503
313. To a Christian Brother 504
314. To a Christian Gentlewoman... 505
315. To Lady Kenmure 508
316. To Mr. J. G 509
317. To Lady Kenmure 510
318. To Lady Ardross 511
319. To M. 0 512
320. To Earlston, Elder 514
321. To Mr. George Gillespie 515
322. To Mistress Gillespie 516
323. To Col. Gilbert Ker 517
324. To the same 519
325. To Mr. William Guthrie 520
326. To Col. Gilbert Ker 521
327. To the same 522
328. To the same 524
329. To the same 527
330. To Lady Kenmure 528
331. To the same 529
332. To Grizzel FuUerton 530
333. To Lady Kenmure 531
334. To Col. Gilbert Ker 532
335. To Mr. John Scott 534
336. To Lady Kenaiure 535
337. To the same 536
338. To the same 536
339. To Mr. John Scott 537
340. To the same 537
341. To Mr. James Durham 538
342. To Mr. John Scott 539
343. To Lady Kenmure 539
314. To the same 540
345. To Mr. Guthrie, Mr. Traill, etc. 542
346. To some Brethren 543
347. On Petitioning Charles II 544
3 18. To Lady Kenmure 546
349. To Mistress Craig 547
350. To Mr. James Guthrie 549
351. To Mr. Robert Campbell 550
352. To Aberdeen 551
ADVERTISEMENT.
In this edition of " The Letters" of that eminently holy minister of the
Gospel, who suffered so much persecution for the Word of God, and for
Scotland's Covenanted Work of Reformation, the Rev. Samuel Ruther-
ford, the text — which, in later editions, had, through carelessness of print-
ing, unacquaintance with the Scottish dialect, and attempts to substitute
English words and phrases for Scotch ones, become very corrupt — has,
by a careful collation of the earliest editions, been corrected and restored ;
while the Scottish words, allusions, and idiomatic phrases are explained in
notes at the bottom of the page ; and the Letters, which, in some of the
former editions, had been very much mutilated, and had, in all of them,
been printed without any regard to arrangement, have been arranged
according to the dates, in as far as these could be ascertained, at which
they were written, and are given without omission, abridgment, suppres-
sion, or mutilation.
It is not anticipated that any apology needs to be made for this
endeavor to offer to the Christian Public "The Letters" of Rutherford,
in a form somewhat worthy of their author's reputation, and of their own
intrinsic excellence. It may, perhaps, indeed, be thought by some per-
sons, that it would have been better had English words and phrases been
substituted, in the text, for those peculiar to the Scottish dialect ; but,
had this been attempted, much of the spirit of Rutherford would, in
many instances, have evaporated, and the energy of his diction been
impaired ; while the style, having ceased to be Scotch Avithout becoming
English, would have been greatly debased, enfeebled, and vulgarized. By
the plan which has been adopted, it is hoped that the language, allowed
to remain as Rutherford wrote it, will be rendered at once, and perfectly,
intelligible to the southern reader, even though he never before may have
seen or heard a word of the northern speech. No Scotchman can find
the slightest difficulty in the diction.
Other persons may, perhaps, think that some of the Letters might
have been omitted, some of the sentences suppressed, and certain " homely
and familiar expressions, which," Wodrow observes, " have been jested
on by profane wits of his age," might have been altered, with advantage
to this edition. It is true that there are some of the Letters not so valu-
able to the Christian reader as others; but, perhaps there is not one of
them which does not present some useful, if not important instruction,
respecting either doctrine or duty. There are, indeed, not a few repeti-
tions, as was to be expected in familiar letters, written to friends and
acquaintances, without the remotest anticipation of their ever being pub-
lished ; but, those repetitions are generally statements of facts or feelings
regarding matters of absorbing interest to the Christian ; and by those.
VUl ADVERTISEMENT.
therefore, who peruse these Letters with the view of spiritually profiting
thereby, will not be complained of: and it must be confessed that there
are some expressions which " profane wits" might, perhaps, succeed in
turning into ridicule ; but, as there is no danger that they will be so dealt
with by any one who can appreciate the poetic and evangelical beauty of
the Song of Solomon, and as it is not very likely that any " profane wit"
of this age will ever condescend to look into the Letters of the Rev.
Samuel Rutherford, they have been allowed to stand as they came from
the pen of that eminently pure and heavenly minded man.
This edition, then, is thus offered respectfully to the Church of God,
with humble but fervent supplication, that the Holy Ghost, who so fully
dwelt in the venerable Author of these Letters, would bless it, to the
promotion of His own glory, by rendering it the means of arousing some
thoughtless sinners to consider the things which concern their everlasting
peace, before they be forever hid from their eyes, and of building up
some of the saints and edifying them in their most holy Faith.
Editor.
SKETCH OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD
AND HIS LETTERS.
In the history of the Reformation we read of Brother Martin,
a poor monk at Basle, wliose hope of salvation rested solely on
the Lord Jesus, long before Luther arose. Having written out
his confession of reliance on the righteousness of Christ alone,
the monk placed the parchment in a wooden box, and shut up the
wooden box in a hole of the wall of his cell. It was not till last
century that this box with its interesting contents was discovered;
but it was brought to light when the old wall of the monastery
was taken down. And is it not an incident fitted to suggest to
us that Basle may have been made a focus of light in its day
very much in answer to the prayers, and in acknowledgment of
the faith of this "hidden one," and others hke him, who cried day
and night to the Lord ?
Now, there is a fact not unlike this in the history of the district
where Samuel Rutherford labored so lovingly. The people of
that shire tell that there was found, some generations ago, in the
wall of the old chapel of Earlston, in Kirkcudbrightshire, a copy
of Wickllffe's Bible. It seems to have been shut into that recep-
tacle in order to be hid from the view of enemies, but no doubt it
was the lamp of light to some godly souls — who, perhaps in the
silence of night, found opportunity in that chapel to draw it out
of its ark and peruse its pages. It seems that the Lollards of
Kyle (which is the adjoining district,) had brought it to Earlston ;
and there were friends or members of the family of Earlston who
embraced the gospel even in those days.^ May we not believe that
the Gordons of Earlston, in Rutherford's days, were not a little,
indebted to the faith and prayers of these ancient witnesses who
hid the sacred treasure in the chapel wall ? Like the monk of
I Some of the ancestors of Viscount Kemnure embraced the principles of Wicklifie
in the 16th century.
X SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
Basle, their faith and patience were acknowledged in after days
by the blessing sent down on that quarter, when the Lord, in re-
membrance of his "hidden ones,"* both raised up the Gordons of
Earlston, with many others of a Uke spirit, and also sent thither
his servant Samuel Rutherford, to sound the silver trumpet and
make the lamp of truth blaze like a torch all over that region.
Samuel Rutherford was born about the year 1600. His
father is supposed to have been a respectable farmer, and he had
two brothers, James and George. The place of his birth was not
near the scene of his after labors. It is almost certain that Nisbet,
a village of Roxburghshire, close to the Teviot, in the parish of
Crailing, was his birth-place; not long ago, there were some old
people in the parish who remembered the gable-end of the house
in which he was born, and which, from respect to his memory,
was permitted to stand as long as it could keep together. Some
one may yet light upon the well where, when very young, Samuel
nearly lost his life. He had been amusing himself with some
companions when he fell in, and was left there till they ran and
procured assistance ; but on reaching the spot, they found him
seated on a knoll, cold and dripping, yet uninjured. He told them
that " A bonnie white man came and drew him out of the well !"
Whether or not he really fancied that an angel had delivered him
we cannot tell, but it is plain that at all events his boyish thoughts
were already wandering in the region of the sky.
He owed little to his native place. There was not so much of
Christ known in that parish then as there is now. For in after
days he writes, " My soul's desire is, that the place to which I
owe my first birth — in which I fear Christ was scarcely named as
touching any reality of the power of godliness, — may blossom as
the rose." We have no account of his revisiting these scenes of
his early life, though he thus wrote to his friend, Mr. Scott, min-
ister of the adjoining parish of Oxnam. Like Donald Cargill,
born in Perthshire, yet never known to preach there even once, —
Rutherford's labors were all in other parts of the land. In this
arrangement we see the Master's Sovereignty the better ; the
sphere thus appears evidently to be one of God's choosing for the
man, and not the man's gratifying his natural predilections. It
accords, too, with the Master's own example, He having never
returned to Bethlehem, where he was born, to do any of his
works.
Jedburgh is a town three or four miles distant from Nisbet, and
1 Gen. xix. 29.
AND HIS LETTERS. XI
thither Samuel went for his education ; either walking to it and
returning home at evening, — as a school-boy would scarcely
grudge to do, — or residing in the town for a season. The school
at that time met in a part of the ancient abbey, called from this
circumstance the Latiners' Abbey. In the year 1617, we find
him farther from home — removed to Edinburgh, which, forty
years before, had become the seat of a College, though not as yet
a University. There he obtained, in 1621, the degree of A.M.
Soon after, he was appointed Regent or Professor of Humanity,
though there were three other competitors; for his talents had
attracted the notice of many. But, on occasion of a rumor that
cliarged him with some irregularity, — whether with or without
foundation, it is now difficult to ascertain, — he demitted his office
in 1625, and led a private life, attending prelections on theology,
and devoting himself to that study.
It is not unlikely that this may have been the time of which
he says in a lettler, " I knew a man who wondered to see any in
this life laugh or sport." It may have been then that he was led
by the Spirit to know the things that are freely given us of God.
We have no proof that he was converted at an earlier period, but
rather the opposite. He writes, " Like a fool as I was, I suffered
my sun to be high in the heaven and near afternoon, before ever
I took the gate by the end." And again, "I had stood sure, if in
my youth I had borrowed Christ for my bottom." Affliction fol-
lowed ; the clouds returned after the rain ; family trials seemed
to have been used by the Lord to promote the better growth of
the plant of grace. All these dealings of Providence combined
to form his character as a man of God and as a pastor.
In 1627 he was settled at Anwoth, a parish situated in Kirciid-
brightshire, and though at this period Episcopacy had been ob-
truded upon Scotland, and many faithful ministers were suffering
on account of their resistance to its ceremonies and services, yet
he appears to have been allowed to enter on his charge without
any compliance being demanded, and " without giving any en-
gagement to the Bishop." — He began his ministry from the text
John ix. 39. The same Lord that would not let Paul and Timo-
thy preach in Asia,' nor in Bithynia, and yet sent to the one
region the beloved John,^ and to the other the scarcely less be-
loved Peter,' in this instance prevented John Livingstone going to
Anwoth, (though the patron had designed it for him,) and sent
Rutherford instead. This was the more remarkable, because
» Acts, xvi 6, 1. 2 Rev. i. 11. 3 1 Peter, L 1.
XU SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
Livingstone was sent to Ancium, the parish that borders on Nis-
bet, while he who was by birth related to that place was dis-
patched to another spot. This is the Lord's doing. Ministers
must not choose according to the flesh.
During the first years of his labors here the sore illness of his
wife was a bitter grief to him. Her distress was very severe.
He writes of it : — "She is sore tormented night and day. — My
life is bitter unto me. — She sleeps none, and cries as a woman
travailing in birth ; my life was never so wearisome." She con-
tinued in this state for no less than a year and a month, ere she
died. Besides all this, his two children had been taken from him.
Such was the discipline by which he was trained for the duties
of a pastor, and by which a shepherd's heart of true sympathy
was imparted to him.
Anwoth had no large village near the church. The people
were scattered over a hilly district, and were quite a rural flock.
But their shepherd found their souls worth the caring for, and did
not feel that his learning and talents would be ill spent if laid
out in seeking souls, obscure and unknown. See him setting out
to visit ! passing along yonder field, or climbing that hill in his
way to some cottage, his " quick eyes" occasionally glancing on
the objects around, but his " face upward" for the most part, as if
he were gazing into heaven. He has time to visit, for he rises at
three in the morning, and then meets his God in prayer and
meditation, and has space for study besides. He takes some days
for catechizing. He never fails to be found at the sick-beds of his
people. Men said of him, "He is alwai/s praying, always preach-
ing, always visiting the sick, always catechiizng, always writing
and studying." He was known to fall asleep at night speaking
of Christ, and even to speak of him during his sleep. Indeed,
himself speaks of his dreams being of Christ.
His preaching could not but arrest attention, though his elocu-
tion was not good, and his voice rather shrill. He was, — accord-
ing to Wodrow, — "one of the most moving and aflfectionate
preachers in his time, or perhaps in any age of the Church."*
Especially when he came to dwell upon the subject he so de-
lighted in, Jesus Christ, his manner grew so animated that it
seemed as if he would have flown out of the pulpit. An English
merchant said of him in days when controversy might have
turned him to other themes, " I went to St. Andrew's, where I
heard a sweet, majestic looking man (R. Blair,) and he showed
1 WodroVs Church Hist. I 205.
AND HIS LETTERS. XIU
me the majesty of God. After him I heard a little fair man,
(Rutherford,) and he showed me the loveliness of Christ. ''^^
Anwoth was dear to him^ as the sphere appointed him by his
Master, more than because of the fruits of his labors. Two years
after being settled there, he writes, "I see exceedingly small fruit
of my ministry. I would be glad of one soul, to be a crown of
joy and rejoicing in the day of Christ." His people were " like
hot iron, which cooleth when out of the fire." Still he labored in
hope, and labored often almost beyond his strength. Once he
says, "I have a grieved heart daily in my calling." He speaks
of his pained breast, at another time, on the evening of the Lord's
Day, when his work was done. But he had seasons of refreshing
to his own soul at least — especially when the Lord's Supper was
dispensed. Of these seasons he frequently speaks. He asks his
friend, Marion Macknaught, to help with her prayers on such an
occasion, " that being one of the days wherein Christ was wont
to make merry with his friends." It was often then that with
special earnestness he besought the Father to distribute " the great
Loaf, Christ, to the children of his family."
Anwoth church was filled, but not altogether by parishioners.
Many came from great distances ; among others, several that
were converted, seventeen years before, under John Welsh, at
Ayr. These all helped him by their prayers, as did also a goodly
number of godly people in the parish itself, who were the fruit of
the ministry of his predecessor. Yet over the unsaved he yearned
most tenderly. At one time we hear him say, " I would lay my
dearest joys in the gap between you and eternal destruction." At
another, " My witness is in heaven, your heaven would be two
heavens to me, and your salvation two salvations." He could ap-
peal to his people, " My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts are
of you ;" — and he could appeal to God, " O my Lord, judge if my
ministry be not dear to me ; but not so dear by many degrees as
Christ my Lord."
All classes of people of Anwoth were objects of his care. He
maintained a friendly intercovirse with people of high rank, and
1 M'Crie's Sketches.
2 The oak pulpit out of wliich he preached is still preservei The old church is in
the shape of a barn, and could hold only 250 sitters. The years 1631 and 1633 are
carved on some of the seats, — perhaps the seats of the Gordons, or other heritors. We
may add, — while speaking of this old edifice where " the swallows building their nest,"
seemed to the exiled pastor " blessed birds," — that the rusty key of that kirk door is
now in the keeping of Mr. Rowan, Librarian to the New College, Edinburgh, sent to
the college as a precious relic three years ago by a friend through Dr. Welsh.
XIV SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
many of his letters are addressed to such persoris. — But the herd
hoys were not beneath his special attention. He writes of them
when at Aberdeen, and exclaims, " Oh if I might but speak to thee
or your herd boys, of my worthy Master." He had a heart for the
young of all classes, so that he would say of two children of one
of his friends, "I pray for them by name," and could thus take
time to notice one, "Your daughter desires a Bible and a gown.
I hope she shall use the Bible well, which if she do the gown is
the better bestowed." He lamented over the few that cry " Ho-
sanna" in their youth. " Christ is an unknown Christ to young
ones, and therefore they seek him not because they know him
not." He dealt with individual parishioners so closely and so per-
sonally as to be able to appeal to them that he had so done. He
addresses one of them, Jean M'Millan : " I did what I could to
put you within grips of Christ; I told you Christ's testament and
latter-will plainly." He so carried them about with him (like the
priest with the twelve tribes on his breast-plate,) that he could
declare to Gordon of Cardoness, " Thoughts of your soul depart
not from me in my sleep." "My soul was taken up when others
were sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed with a bride in that
part of the land," viz. Anwoth. He so prayed over them and for
them, that he fears not to say, " There I wrestled with the angel
and prevailed. Woods, trees, meadows, and hills, are my wit-
nesses that I drew on a fair match betwixt Christ and Anwoth."
It is related that on first coming to the parish, there was a piece
of ground on Mossrobin farm, where on Sabbath afternoon the
people used to play at foot-ball. On one occasion he repaired to
the spot and pointed out their sin, calling on the objects round to
be witness against them if they persevered, especially three large
stones,' two of which still remain, and are called " Rutherford^s
witnesses."
Once in Anwoth his labors were interrupted by a tertian fever
which laid him aside for thirteen weeks. Even when well re-
covered, he could only preach on the Sabbaths ; visiting and cate-
chizing were at a stand. This was just before his wife's death in
1630, and he writes in the midst of it, " Welcome, welcome, cross
of Christ, if Christ be with it." " An afflicted life looks very like
the way that leads to the kingdom." And some years thereafter,
when his mother, who resided with him six years after his first
wife's death, was in a dangerous illness, he touchingly informs
one of his correspondents, to whom he writes from Anwoth, " My
t Josh. xxiv. 27.
AND HIS LETTERS. XV
mother is weak, and I think shall leave me alone, but I am not
alone, because Christ's Father is with me."
The manse of Anwoth had many visits of kind friends, who in
Rutherford's fellowship felt that saying verified, '- They that dwell
under his shadow shall return ; they shall revive as the corn." ' The
righteous compassed him about, because the Lord had dealt boun-
tifully with him. His letters would be enough of themselves to
show that his company was sought by the godly on all sides.
But besides this evidence, we have notices of such visitors as his
own brother George, at Kirkcudbright. This good man was a
teacher in that town, and often repaired to Anwoth to take sweet
counsel with Samuel ; and then together, they often talked of
and prayed for their only other brother James, an officer in the
Dutch service, who had sympathy with their views, and in after
days conveyed to Samuel the invitation to become Professor at
Utrecht. Visits of those friends who resided near were not un-
frequent, such as the Gordons, Viscount Kenmure and his lady,
and in humbler li(e, Marion Macknaught. But at times Anwoth
manse was hghted up by the glad visit of unexpected guests.
There is a tradition that Archbishop Usher, passing through Gal-
loway, turned aside on a Saturday to enjoy the congenial society
of Rutherford. He came, however, in disguise, and being wel-
comed as a guest, took his place with the rest of the family when
they were catechized, as was usual that evening. The stranger
was asked, " How many commandments are there?" His reply
was " Eleven.'''' The pastor corrected him ; but the stranger
maintained his position, quoting our Lord's words, '• A new com-
mandment / give unto you^ that you love one another.^'' They
retired to rest, all interested in the stranger. Sabbath morning
dawned, Rutherford arose and repaired for meditation to a walk
that bordered on a thicket,* but was startled by hearing the voice
of prayer, — prayer too, from the heart, and in behalf of the souls
of the people that day to assemble. It was no other than the
holy Archbishop Usher ; and soon they came to an explanation,
for Rutherford had begun to suspect he had "entertained angels
unawares." With great mutual love they conversed together, and
at the request of Rutherford, the Archbishop went up to the pulpit,
conducted the usual service of the presbyterian pastor, and
preached on " the New Commandment."
Scarcely less interesting is the record of one of those incidental
* Hos. xiv. 7.
2 The place is Btill pointed out by tradition, as " Rutherford's Walk"
XVI SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD ,
meetings that are often so refreshing to the saints in their pilgri-
mage. Rutherford iiad one day left home to go to the neighbor-
ing town of Kirkcudbright, the next day being a day of humilia-
tion in that place. Having no doubt spent some time with his like-
minded brother, he had turned his steps to tlie house of another
friend, Provost Fullerton, whose wife was Marion Macknaught.
While sitting with them a knock at tlie door was heard, and then
a step on the threshold. It was worthy Mr. Blair, who, on his
way from London to Port Patrick, had sought out some of his
godly friends, that with them he might be refreshed ere he returned
to Ireland. He told them, when seated, that "he had a desire to
visit both Mr. Rutherford at Anwoth, and Marion Macknaught at
Kirkcudbright, but not knowing how to accomplish both, he had
prayed for direction at the parting of the road, and laid the bridle
on the horse's neck. The horse took the way to Kirkcudbright,
and there he found both the friends he so longed to see." It was
a joyful and refreshing meeting on all sides.
In 1634 he attended the remarkable death-bed of Lord Ken-
mure, a narrative of which he published fifteen years after, in
"The last heavenly speeches and glorious departure of John
Viscount Kenmure." ' The inroads of Episcopacy were at this
time threatening to disquiet Anwoth. His own domestic afflic-
tions were still affecting him ; for he writes that same year, in re-
ferring to his wife's death many years before, " which wound is
not yet fully healed and cured." About that time, too, there was
a proposal never carried into effect to call him to Cramond, near
Edinburgh.
Meanwhile he persevered in study as well as in labors, and
with no common success. He had himself a metaphysical turn,
as well as a great readiness in using the accumulated learning of
other days. It might be instructive to inquire why it is that
wherever Godliness is healthy and progressive we almost invari-
ably find Learning in the Church of Christ attendant on it ; while
on the other hand, an illiterate state is attended sooner or later
by decay of vital godliness. Not that all are learned in such
' Referring to the previous tempest that swept tlirough Lord Kenmure 's soul, the
preface says that we may be taught that, " the wound of a wounded conscience is a
most inexpressible terror ; none can describe it but he who has tried and tasted the
same. It hnpaireth the health, drieth up the blood, wasteth away the maiTow, pineth
away the flesh, consumeth away the bones, maketh pleasure painful, and shortcneth
life. No wisdom can counsel it, no counsel can advise it, no advice can persuade it,
no assuagement can cure it, no eloquence can move it, no power can overcome it, no
epectre affray it, no enchanter charm it."
AND HIS LETTERS. XVU
times ; but there is always an ingredient of the kind among some
of those whom the Lord is using. It may be that the energy of
soul created by a revival leads on to the study of whatever is
likely to be useful in the defence or propagation of the truth,
whereas, when decay is progressing in a church, sloth and ease
prevail, and are causes why theological learning is thought too
heavy to be plodded through. With Samuel Rutherford and his
contemporaries we find learning side b}?^ side with vital, and singu-
larly deep godliness. Gillespie, Henderson, Blair, Dickson, and
others, are well-known proofs. Circumstances led Rutherford in
1636 to publish his elaborate defences of grace against the Armin-
ians, in Latin. Its title is " Exercitationes de Gratia." So highly
was it esteemed at Amsterdam, where it was published, that a
second edition was printed that very year ; and invitations were
addressed soon after to the author to come over and occupy the
chair of Professor of Divinity in Utrecht. The university of
Hardewyrk had already offered him both its chair of Divinity and
Hebrew.
The contest for Chrisfs Kingly office had become hot and
keen. To Rutherford it appeared no small matter. " I could
wish many pounds added to my cross to know that by my suffer-
ing Christ was set forward in his Kingly office in this land."
July 27, 1636, was a day that put his principles to the test. He
was called before the High Commission Court, because of non-con-
formity to the acts of Episcopacy, and because of his work against
the Arminians. The issue was not doubtful, though Lord Lorn
made every exertion in his behalf, — they deprived him of his min-
isterial office, which he had exercised at Anwoth for a period of
nine years, and banished him to Aberdeen. The next day, writ-
ing at evening on the subject, he tells of his sentence, and sub-
joins, " The honor that I have prayed for these sixteen years."
He made up liis mind to leave Anwoth at once, observing, with a
submissiveness which we cannot help wondering at in the author
of Lex Rex, " I purpose to obey the king, who has power over my
body." * His only regret was lest this separation from his flock
' Tlie following is liLs owii account of this whole matter, as given in a speech de-
livered before the General Assembly of 29th Nov. 1638. Wlien asked by the Mod-
erator, " "Were you not sent to Aberdeen by the High Commission ?" his reply was,
"Most true. I was sent in and summoned by the High Commission for diverse points
the Bishop of Galloway hbelled against me, and there was nothing at all proven
against me, notwithstanding three several days I was before them ; and the third day
they had no other question to propose, but those wherewith they attempted me the
first two days, — only the matter of non-conformity, which I stand by ; and upoa this
2
XVIU SKETCH OP RUTHERFORD
was a chastisement on him from the Lord, "Because I have not
been so faithful in the end as I was in the two first years of my
ministry, when sleep departed from mine eyes through care for
Christ's lambs."
On leaving Anvvoth he directed his steps by Irvine, spending a
night there with his beloved friend David Dickson. What a night
it would be ! To hear these two in solemn converse ! The one
could not handle thq harp so well as the other ; for David Dick-
son could express his soul's weary longings and its consoling hopes
in such strains as that which has made his name familiar in Scot-
land, " O mother dear Jerusalem^'' &c. But Rutherford, never-
theless, had so much of poetry and sublime enthusiasm in his soul,
that any poet could sympathize with him to the full. Many of
his lettters " from Chrisfs palace in Aberdeen" have strains of
true poetry. What else is such an effusion as this, when rising on
eagles' wings, he exclaims, "A land that has more than four
summers in the year ! What a singing life is there ! There is
not a dumb bird in all that large field, but all sing and breathe
out heaven, joy, glory, dominion, to the High Prince of that new-
found land. And verily the land is sweeter that He is the glory
of that land." "O how sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly
in Christ — to dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land, and
live in that sweetest air, where no wind blovveth but the breath-
ings of the Holy Ghost — no sea nor floods flow but the pure water
of life that floweth from under the throne and from the Lamb —
no planting, but the tree of life that yieldeth twelve manner of
fruits every month ! What do we here but sin and suffer ? O
when shall the night be gone, the shadows flee away, and the
morning of the long, long day, without cloud or night, dawn?
they Bcntenced me, after I declared by writ, the unlawfuhiess of that act, and that I
durst not be answerable to the king to acknowledge that judicatory, because it was
against the standing law of the kingdom. Notwithstanding of this, they proceeded
against me, deprived me of my ministry in Anwoth, and confined me in Aberdeen.
I watched on in Edinburgli, desiring the clerk to give me an extract of the sentence,
but could not get it ; and the reason why he shifted me was, because the Bishop of
Galloway caused him to add a point to my sentence that I was not sentenced for, viz.
that I should exei'cise no ministerial functions within the king's dominions. The clerk
denied it was a point of my sentence, notwithstanding the Bishoj) of Galloway caused
to add that point, and I could never have the extract of it, only I got a copy." — Re-
cords of the Church of Scotland, p. 150. Baillie says, " He was silenced and confined
to Aberdeen for preaching against the Articles of Perth, and such things. It is true
he refused to give the Chancellor or any of the Bishops their styles. Tliey were
aniniat also against him for taxing Cameron in his book, and more for his indiscreet
raihng at Jackson." — Baill. i. p. 8.
AND HIS LETTERS. XIX
The Spirit and the bride say ' Come !' O when shall the Lamb's
wife be ready, and the Bridegroom say, Come ?" Whoever com-
pares such breathings as this with David Dickson's hymn, will at
once see how very congenial were their feelings and their hopes,
and even their mode of expressing what they felt and hoped,
though the one used prose and the other tried more memorable
verse.
We follow Rutherford to Aberdeen, the capital of the North,
whither he was accompanied by a deputation of his affectionate
parishioners from Anwoth, in whose company he would forget the
length and tediousness of the way. He arrived here in Septem-
ber, 1636. This town was at that time the stronghold of Episco-
pacy and Arminianism, and in it the state of religion was very
low. " It consisted of Papists, and men of Gallio's naughty faith." '
The clergy and doctors took the opportunity of Rutherford's arrival,
to commence a series of attacks on the doctrines he held. But in
disputation he foiled them ; and when many began to feel drawn
to his earnest dealings or private exhortations, there was a proposal
made to remove him from the town. " So cold," writes he, " is
northern love ! But (added he) Christ mid I will hear it f deeply
feeling his union to him who said to Saul, " why persecutest thou
me J?" Often on the streets,^ he was pointed out as " the Ban-
ished Minister f^ and hearing of this, he remarked, '-I am not
ashamed of my garland." He had visitors from Orkney, and from
Caithness, to the great annoyance of his persecutors. Some
blamed him for not being ^'■prudent enough^'' as we have seen
men ready to do in the case of Dr. Kalley at Madeira in our day;
but he replies, " It is ordinary that that should be part of the cross
of those who suffer for him P Still he enjoyed, in his solitude,
occasional intercourse with some of the godly ones, among whom
were Lady Pitshgo, Lady Burnet of Largs, Andrew Cant, and
James Martin. His deepest affliction was separation from his
flock at Anwoth. Nothing can exceed his tender sorrow over this
flock.
It was a saying of his own, " Gold may be gold and bear the
king's stamp upon it, when it is trampled upon by men." And
1 Dr. James Sibbald, said to have been a man of great learning, was minister in one
of the churches of what was then called New Aberdeen, and Rutherford was a hearer
of his ; he taught Arminianism, and Rutherford afterwards testified against him ou
this point from what he had himself listened to. — Gordons Scots Affair, iii. 230.
* The impression of some readers might be that he was in prison. But he never
■was so. He was in exile ; but the whole town was his prison, like Shimei confined to
Jerusalem.
XX SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
(his was true of himself. But he came out of his trial unhurt ;
or rather, as his many letters from Aberdeen show, greatly in-
creased in every grace.
He was part of two years closely confined to that town ; but in
1638 public events had taken another turn. The Lord had
stirred up the spirit of the people of Scotland, and the Covenant
was again triumphant in the land. Rutherford hastened back to
Anwoth. During his absence, " for six quarters of a year," say
his parishioners, " no sound of the word of God was heard in our
kirk." The swallows had made their nests undisturbed for two
summers.
His letters do not refer to the proceedings of the Glasgow As-
sembly of 1638 ; still it is well known that he was no mere indif-
ferent spectator to what then took place, but was member of sev-
eral committees which at that time sat on the affairs of the
Church ; and Presbytery being fully restored by that Assembly,
it was thought right that one so gifted should now be brought
forward to a more important sphere. He was sent by the Church
to several districts to promote the cause of reformation and the
covenant : and at length, in spite of his reluctance, arising chiefly
from love to his flock, — his rural flock at Anwoth, — he was con-
strained by the united opinion of his brethren to remove to the
Professor's Chair in St. Andrew's, in 1639. He bargained to be
allowed to preach regularly every Sabbath in his new sphere ; for
he could not endure silence when he might speak a word for his
Lord. He seems to have preached, as occasion offered, in the
parishes around, especially at Scoonie, where the village of Leven
stands. His hands were necessarily filled with work in his new
sphere ; yet still he relaxed nothing of his diligence in study.
Nor did he lose anything of former blessing. It was here the
English merchant heard him preach so affectingly on the loveli-
ness of Christ while such was his success as a Professor that " the
university became a Lebanon out of which were taken cedars for
building the house of God throughout the land."
In the year 1640, he married his second wife, " a woman," says
one, " of such worth, that I never knew any among men exceed
him, nor any among women exceed her. He who heard either
of them pray or speak might have learnt to bemoan his own
ignorance. Oh how many times I have been convinced by ob-
serving them, of the evil of unseriousness unto God, and unsa-
voriness in discourse," They had seven children ; but only one
AND HIS LETTERS. XXI
survived the father, a little daughter Agnes, who does not seem
to have been a comfort to her godly mother.
In July, 1643, the Westminster Assembly sat ; and to it he was
sent up as one of the Commissioners from Scotland. There exists
in MS. in the library of the Edinburgh University, a sketch of
the Shorter Catechism, in Rutherford's handwriting, very much
resembling the Catechism as it now stands, as if he had had the
principal hand in drawing it up for the Assembly. He continued
four years attending the sittings of this famous synod, and was of
much use in<*heir deliberations. So prominent a part did he take,
that the great Milton has singled him out for attack in his lines,
" On the new forcers of conscience, under the Long Parliament."
Milton knew him only as an opponent of his sectarian and Inde-
pendent principles, and so could scorn measures proposed by " Mere
A. S. and Rutherford." But had he known the soul of the man,
would not even Milton have found that there was a sublimity of
thought and feeling in his adversary, that at times might ap-
proach his own lofty poesy ? Yet how interesting, in any point of
view, to find the devoted Pastor of Anwoth, on the streets of Lon-
don, crossing the path of the greatest poet of modern times !
During his residence in London, several of his family died ; yet
amid the trials and bustle of that time he wrote " the Due Right
of Presbytery," " Lex Rex," and " Trial and Triumph of Faith."
Returning home to St. Andrew's he resumed his labors both
in the college and in the pulpit with all his former zeal.* He
1 "1651, July 13. — Tlie comm. was given at Scoonie. Mr. Alex. Moncrieff, m.
there, did preach the Preparation Sermon, and on Monday morning, Mr. Sa. Ruther-
ford did preach ; his text at both occasions "was Luke vii. 36 till 39 v. At this time
was present, besides Mr. Sa. Rutherford, Mr. Ja. Guthrie, and Mr. David Bennet, Mr.
Ephraim Melven, and Mr. William OHphant, m. in Dumfermhn. lliither did resort
many strangers, so that the throng was great. Mr. Ephraim, and Mr. D. Bennet both
did sit witliin the pulpit while the minister had his sermon." " 1654, Jan. 4. — Being
Saturday, there was a Preparation Sermon for a Thanksgiving preached at Scoonie
in Fyfe, for the continuance of the Gospel in the land, and for the spreading of it in
some places of the Highlands in Scotland, where in some families two, and in some
famiUes one, began to call on God by prayer. Mr. Samuel Rutherford, M. in St. An-
drew's, preached on Saturday ; his text, Isai. xlLx. 9, 10, 11, 12. On the Sabbath, Mr
Alex. Moncrieff, M then preached ; hi-i lecture, 1 Thess. i. ch. ; his text, Coloss. i. 27.
In the afternoon of the Sabbath, Mr. Samuel preached again upon his forementioned
text. On Monday morning, Mr. Samuel had a Lecture on PsaL IxxxviiL He did
read the whole Psalm. Observe, that on Saturday Mr. Samuel had tliis expression in
his prayer after sermon, desiring that the Lord would rebuke Presbyteries and others
that had taken the keys and the power in their hands, and keeped out, and would suf-
fer none to enter (meaning in the ministry) but such as said as they said." — Lamonl'a
Diary.
XXU SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
joined tlie Protesters in determinedly opposing the proceedings of
the Commission of Assembly, who had censured such as pro-
tested against the admission to power of persons in the class of
Malignants. His friend David Dickson keenly opposed him, and
Mr. Blair also, though less violently. It was this controversy that
made John Livingstone say in a letter to Blair,' " Your and Mr.
D. Dickson's accession to these resolutions, is the saddest thing I
have seen in my time. My wife and I have had more bitterness
in this respect, these several months, than ever we had since we
knew what bitterness meant." Rutherford wiote to© violently on
this matter ; for all parties were greatly excited. Still he did not
lose his brotherly love, the same brotherly love that led him to
embrace Archbishop Usher as a fellow-believer. We may get a
lesson for our times from his remarks on occasion of these bitter
controversies. It is in 1646, that he writes ; " It is hard when
saints rejoice in the sufferings of saints, and redeemed ones hurt,
and go nigh to hate, redeemed ones. For contempt of the com-
munion of saints, we have need of new-born crosses scarce ever
heard of before. — Our star-light hideth us from ourselves, and
hideth us from one another, and Christ from us all." And then
he subjoins, (and is he not borne out by the words of the Lord in
John xvii. 22.) " A doubt it is if we shall have fully one heart, till
we shall enjoy one heaven." The state of things lay heavy on
his mind : " I am broken and wasted by the wrath that is upon
this land."
Milton sings, " They also serve who only stand and wait ;" and
Rutherford was longing now for such service. He sometimes
refers to this desire ; he wishes for a quiet harbor in his latter
days ; only, adds he, " sailing is serving" — and he did delight in
serving his Lord.
In 1660, his published work, " Lex Rex," was taken notice of
by the government ; for reasonable as it is in defence of the lib-
erty of subjects, its spirit of freedom was intolerable to rulers who
were gradually advancing to acts of cruelty and death. Indeed,
it was so hateful to them, that they burnt it, first at Edinburgh
by the hands of the hangman ; and then some days after by the
hands of the infamous Sharpe, under the windows of its author's
College in St. Andrew's. He was next deposed from all his offices ;
and last of all summoned to answer at next Parliament on a
charge of high treason. But the summons was too late. He
was already on his death-bed, and on hearing of the summons,
1 Wodrow Select Biographies.
AND HIS LETTERS. XXIU
calmly remarked, that he had got another summons before a su-
perior Judge and Judicatory, and sent the message, "I behove to
answer my first, summons ; and ere your day arrive, I will be \
where few king^and great folks come."
All that is told us of his death-bed is characteristic of the man.
He said when asked, " What think ye now of Christ?"—" I shall
live and adore him. Glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land." The
same afternoon he said, " I shall sleep in Christ, and when I
awake I shall be satisfied with his likeness." Once he cried
aloud, " O for arms to embrace Him ! O for a well-tuned harp !"
This last expression he used more than once, as if already stretch-
ing out his hand to get his golden harp, and join the redeemed in
their new song. He also said on another occasion, "I hear him
saying to me, ' Come up hither.' " His little daughter, Agnes,
only eleven years of age, stood by his bed-side ; he looked on her,
and said, " 1 have left her upon the Lord." Well might the man
say so, who could so fully testify of his portion in the Lord, as a
goodly heritage. To four of his brethren, who came to see him,
he said, " My Lord and Master is chief of ten thousands of thou-
sands. None is comparable to Him in heaven, or in earth. Dear
brethren, do all for Him. Pray for Christ. Preach ybr Christ."
He seemed to know the hour of his departure, not perhaps so
surely as Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 6, or Peter, 2 Peter i. 14, yet still in a
manner that seems to indicate that the Lord draws very near his
servants in that hour, and gives glimpses of what he is doing.
On the last day of his life, in the afternoon, he said, "This night
will close the door, and fasten. my anchor within the veil, and I
shall go away in a sleep by five o'clock in the morning." And so
it was. He entered Immanuel's land at that very hour, March
20, 1661, at his house in St. Andrew's, and is now (as himself
would have said) " sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty," till
the Lord come. One of his dying sayings was, " There is noth-
ing now between me and the resurrection but, 'This day tlioa
shalt be with me in Paradise.' " And Livingstone records that
his last words were, "Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land !"
— as if he had caught a glimpse of its mountain tops.'
Had he lived a few v;eeks, his might have been the cruel deatli
1 "1661, Mar. 29, (a mistake for 20.) Mr. Samuel Rutherford, Principal of the
"New College in St. Andrew's, departed out of this life, at his dwelhng-house there,
and was interred the 30th of Mar. at the ordinary burial place of the said city. Some
"weeks before lie had a daughter that departed out of this Ufe Ukewise. Also, the
said 30 of Mar. Mr. Andrew Honeyman's mother-in-law was interred Ukewise. They
were both carried at one time to their long home." — Zamont's Diary.
XXIV , SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
endured by his friend James Guthrie, whom he had encouraged
by his letters to steadfastness to the end. The vote which the
Parhament passed when told that he was dying did him no dis-
honor. When they had voted that he should not die in the Col-
lege, Lord Burleigh rose and said, " Ye cannot vote him out of
heaven."
If ever there was any portrait of him, it is not now known.
We are most familiar with the likeness of his soul. There is one
expressive line in the epitaph on his tombstone, in the churchyard
of the Chapel of St. Regulus :
What tongue, what pen, or skill of men,
Can famous Rutherford commend !
His learning justly raised his fame,
True greatness did adorn his name.
He did converse with things above,
Acquainted with ImnianueVs love.
His memory was long cherished, and it is said that so great
was the reverence which some of the godly had for this venerable
man, that they requested to be buried near where his body was laid.
It is also mentioned, that an old man in the parish of Crailing
remembers the veneration entertained for him by the great-grand-
father of the present Marquis of Lothian. This good Marquis used
to lift his hat as he passed the spot where stood the cottage in
which Samuel Rutherford was born.
His " Letters" have long been famous among the godly.
The collector was godly Mr. M'Ward, who, as a student, being
much beloved by Rutherford, went to the Westminster Assembly
with him as his secretary. He was afterwards successor to An-
drew Gray in Glasgow, and finally minister in Rotterdam. He
published them with an enthusiastic recommendation ; but seems
sometimes to have given us erroneous readings. At least, there
are occasionally expressions or clauses that are obscure, as they
stand in print. The first letter is dated April 23, 1628 ; and on-
ward from that date, we have occasional pieces up to the year of
his death. It will be noticed, that at times, the pen of the ready
writer ran on most rapidly. He has written many in one day,
when his heart was overflowing. It was easy to write when the
Lord was pouring on him the unction that teacheth all things.
He would sometimes have written still more, but he had heard
that people looked up to him and overpraised his letters. During
his confinement at Aberdeen, he wrote about 220.
There are a few unpleasant expressions in the letters, which
AND HIS LETTERS. XXV
are the sparks of a fancy that sought to appropriate everything
to spiritual purposes ; but as to extravagance in the thoughts con-
veyed, there is none. The extravagance alleged against them by
some, is just that of Paul, when he spoke of knowing " the height
and depth, length and breadth," of the love of Christ ; or that of
Solomon, when the Holy Ghost inspired him to write " The Song
of Songs." Rather would we say of these letters, what Living-
stone in a letter says of John Welsh's dying words, " O for a sweet
fill of this fanatic humor !" In modern days, Richard Cecil has
said of Rutherford : " He is one of my classics ; he is a real origi-
nal ;" and in older times, Richard Baxter, some of whose theo-
logical leanings might have prejudiced him, if anything could,
said of his letters : " Hold off the Bible, such a book the world
never saw." They were long ago translated into Dutch, and of late
years they have been translated into German. Both in these, and
in his other writings, we see sufficient proof that had he cultivated
literature as a pursuit, he might have stood high in the admira-
tion of men.^
The letters often, by a few strokes, suggest very much that is
edifying and impressive. There is something not easily forgotten
in the words used to express the Church's indestructibleness in
that letter, where he says, " the bush has been burning these five
thousand years, and 7io man yet saw the ashes of that fire.^^ How
mucli truth is conveyed by that saying, " Losses for Christ are
but goods given out in bank in Christ's hand." There is an in-
genious use of Scripture that often dehghts the reader, as when
he speaks of " the corn on the house-tops that never got the hus-
bandman's prayer," or of " Him that counteth the basons and
knives of his house, (Ezra i. 9, 10,) and bringeth them back safe
to his second temple." But the general characteristics of his let-
ters are still more worthy of attentive consideration.
' His other works bear the stamp of the same lofty soul. In his Treatise, " De
Divina Providentia," the following paragraph occiu-s extolling the glory of Godhead
wisdom. " Comparentur cum ilia increata sapientia Dei Patris umbratiles scintillulai
creatae gloriolte quotquot nominis celebritate inclaruerunt. Delirat Plato. Mentitur
Aristoteles. Cicero balbulit, htesitat, nescit Latine loquL Demosthenes mutus et
elinguis obstepescit ; virtutis viam ignorat Seneca, nihil canit Homerus, — male canit
Virgiliusl Accedant ad ChriBtum qui virtutis gloria fulgent! Aristides virtutem
mentitur. Fahius cespitat, a via justitiae deviat. Socrates ne hoc quidem scit, se niliil
Bcire. Cato levis et futdis est, Solon est mundi et voluptatum servus et mancipium,
non legislator. Pythagoras nee sophos, nee philosophus est. Bias nee mundi nee
inanis glorias contemptor. Alexander Macedo ignavus est," <fec.
XXVI SKETCH OP RUTHERFORD
These Letters will ever be precious to : —
1. All who are sensible of their own, and the Church's, decay
and corruptions. The wound and the cure are therein so fully
opened out ; self is exposed, even spiritual self. He will tell
you, " There is as much need to watch over grace, as to watch
over sin." He will show you God in Christ, to fill up the place
usurped by self. The subtleties of sin, idols, snares, temptations,
self-deceptions, are dragged into view from time to time. And
what is better still, the cords of Christ are twined round the roots
of these bitter plants, that they may be plucked up.
Nor is it less so in regard to corruption in public, and in the
Church. We do not mean merely the open corruption of error,
but the secret " gray hairs" of decay. How it suits our day to
hear him cry, " There is universal deadness on all that fear God.
/Oh whpre are the sometime quickening breathjings, and injlu-
y^nces from heaven that have refreshed his hidden ones .'" And
then, how like our day when his complaint laments, in the name
of the saints, " Wfc are half-satisfied with our witheredness ; nor
have we so much of .his strain who doth eight times breathe out
that suit (Psa. 119,) Quicken me !" We live far from the well,
and copaplain but dryly of our dryness."
' ' ' •■ '5^' ■■'".'. '
2. A II who delight in the Surety^ s imputed righteousness. If
thoroughly aware of the body of sin in ourselves, we cannot but
feel that we need a person in our stead,— the person of the God-
man in the room of our guilty person. This is full salvation from
^guilt. " To us a Son is given ;" not salvation only, but a Saviour.
The person of Jesus is given us, " he gave himself for iis."
These Letters are ever carrying us to the Surety and his right-
eousness. The eye never gets time to rest long on anything
apart from Him and his righteousness. We are shown the del-
uge-waters undried up, in order to lead us into the ark again ; " I
had fainted, had not want and penury chased me to the storehouse
of ajy says he on one occasion.
3. All who rejoice in the gospel of free grace. Lord Kenmure
once said to him, " Sin causeth me to be jealous of His love to
such a man as I have been ;" he replied, "Be jealous of yourself,
my lord, but not of Jesus Christ." In his "Trial and Triumph
of Faith," he remarks, "As holy walking is a duty coming from
us, it is no ground of true peace. Believers often seek in them-
selves what they should seek in Christ." It is to the like effect
AND HIS LETTERS. XXVll
he says in a letter, "Your heart is not the compass that Christ
saileth by," turning away his friends from looking inward, to look
upon the heart of Jesus. And this is his meaning, when he thus
lays the whole burden of salvation on the Lord, and leaves noth-
ing for us but acceptance, "Take ease to thyself, and let him bear
all." Then pointing us to the risen Saviour as our pledge of com-
plete redemption, "Faith may dance, because Christ singeth ;"
" Faith apprehendeth pardon, but never payeth a penny for it."
On his death-bed he said to his friends, " I disclaim all that ever
God made me will or do, and I look upon it as defiled and imper-
fect." And so in his letters he will admit of no addition, or in-
termixture of other things ; " The Gospel is like a small hair that
hath no breadth, and will not cleave in two." He- Exhorts to as-
surance as being the way to be humbled very low before Ood:
"Often in us, complaining is but; a hunlbfe backbiting and tra-
ducing of Christ's new work in the soul." "Make meikle of as-
surance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed." He warns us, in his
Trial and Triumph of Faith, " not to be too desirous of keen
awakenings to chase us to Christ. Let Christ tutor me as he
thinketh good. He has seven eyes : I have but one, and that too
dim." In a similar strain he writes : — " The law shall never be
my doomster, by Christ's grace ; I shall find a sure enough doom
in the gospel to humble and cast me down. There cannot be a
more humble soid than a believer. It is no pride in a drowning
man to catch hold of a rockP How much truth there is here !
Naaman never was humble in any degree, until he felt himself
com,pletely healed of his scaly leprosy : but truly he was humbled
and humble then. And what one word is there, that suerffests so
many humbling thoughts as that word " Gracef
4. All who seek to grow in holiness. The Holy Ghost delights
to show us the glorious Godhead, in the face of Jesus. And this
is a very frequent theme in these letters. He often seems to be
standing in immovable contemplation of Christ, and so becom-
ing holier and holier ; "changed into the same image from glory
to glory." " Take Christ for sanctification, as well as justifica-
tion," is often his theme. And in him we see a ma"n who seems
to have sought (or holiness as unceasingly and as eagerly as other
men seek for pardon and peace. In him, " holiness to the Lord^^
seems written on every affection of the heart, and on every fresh-
springing thought.
Fellowship with the living God is a distinguishing feature in
XXVlll SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
the holiness given by the Holy Ghost, " access by one Spirit to
the Father through him." It must be with the Living One we
meet, and then the sympathies of a Hving heart are felt. Ruth-
erford could sometimes say, " I have been so near Him, that I
have said, 'I take instruments that this is the Lord.'" And he
could from experience declare, " I dare avouch the saints know
not the length and largeness of the sweet Earnest, and of the
sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that might be had on this
side of the water, if we tvoidcl take ino7'e pai?is.'^ "I am every
way in your case, as hard-hearted and dead as any man, but yet
I speak to Christ through my sleep." All this is from the pen of
a man who was a metaphysician, a controversialist, a leader in
the Church, and learned in ancient lore. Why are there not such
gracious, as well as great men now ?
5, All afflicted persons. He abounds in rich words to such ;
indeed, here he had the very " tongue of the learned, to speak a
word in season to him that was weary." And with what tender
sympathy does he speak, leading the mourner so gently to the
heart of Jesus ! He knew the heart of a stranger, for he had
been a stranger. " Let no man after me slander Christ for his
cross." Yes, says he, his most loved are often his most tried ;
"The lintel-stone and pillars of his New Jerusalem suffer more
knocks of God's hammer and tools, than the common side-wall
stones." Even as to reproach and calumny, " I love Christ's
worst reproaches."
It was to Hugh M'Kail, he wrote, " Some have written me that
I am possibly too joyful of the cross, but my joy overleapeth the
cross, — it is bounded and terminated on Christ." And there it
was he found a well of comfort never dry.
6. All who love the Person of Christ. Our age and country
have been tempted to be satisfied with speculative, abstract doc-
trine. On the one hand, the orthodox have too often rested in the
statements of our Catechisms and Confession ; and, on the other,
the "Election-doubters," (as Bunyan would have called them,)
have gone about with their favorite dogma, that Christ died for
all men, as if mere assent to a proposition would save the soul.
Rutherford ever places the truth before us in a savory way — full
of life and warmth. The person of Him who gave himself for
his church is held up in all its attractiveness. With him, it is
ever the Person as much as the work done ; or rather, never the
AND HIS LETTERS. XXIX
one apart from the other. Like Paul, he would fain know Him,
and the power of his resurrection.
Once when Lord Kenmure asked him, " What will Christ be
like when he cometh?" his reply was, " All lovely.''^ And this is
everywhere the favorite theme with him. At times he tells of
his love. "His love surroundeth and surchargeth me." "If his
love was not in heaven, I should be unwilling to go thither."
But often he checks his pen to tell of Christ himself. " Wel-
come, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ ;" — then correct-
ing his language, — " Welcome, fair, lovely, royal King, with
thine ow?i cross.^^ " Oh if I could doat as much upon Himself as
I do upon his love." " I fear I make more of his love than of
HiTnself^^ How peculiar, and how true is this remark, "'I see
that in communion with Christ we may make more Gods than
one," meaning, that we may be tempted to make the enjoyment
itself our God. It was his habitual aim to pass through privi-
leges, joys, even fellowship, to God himself; "I have casten this
work upon Christ, to get me himself J^ " I would be farther in
upon Christ than at his joys — in, where love and mercy lodgeth
— beside his heart." " He who sitteth on the throne is his lone
a sufficient heaven." " Sure I am He is the far best half of
heaven."
In one word, such was his soul's view of the livinsr Person, that
he writes, " Holiness is not Christ, nor the blossoms and flowers
of the tree of life, nor the tree itself" He had found out the true
fountain-head, and would direct all Zion's travellers thither. And
let a man try this, — let the Holy Spirit lead a man to this Person,
— and surely his experience will be, " None ever came up dry
from David's well."
All who love that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the
great God our Saviour. The more we love the person of Christ,
the more ought we to love his appearing, and the more we cherish
both feelings, the holier shall we become. Rutherford abounds
in aspirations for that day ; he is one who " looks for and hastens
unto the coming of the day of God !" While in exile at Aber-
deen in 1637, he writes, "O when will we meet ! O how long is
it to the dawning of the marriage day? O sweet Jesus, take
wide steps ! O my Lord, come over mountains at one stride ! O
my Beloved, flee as a roe or young hart upon the mountains of
separation." Now and then he has the expression of an intense
desire for the restoration of Israel to their Lord, and the fulness
XXX SKETCH OP RUTHERFORD.
of the Gentiles; but far oftener his desires go forth to his Lord
himself. " O fairest among the sons of men, why stayest thou
so long away ? O heavens, move fast ! O time, run, run, and
hasten the marriage day !" To Lady Kenmure his words are,
"The Lord hath told you what you should be doing till he come.
'Wait and hasten,' saith Peter, 'for the coming of the Lord.'
Sigh and long for the dawning of that morning and the breaking
of that day of the coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows
shall flee away. Wait with the wearied night-watch for the
breaking of the eastern sky." Saints who feel their exile and ab-
sence most are those who will most fervently love their Lord's ap-
pearing. It was thus with Daniel on the banks of Ulai, and John
in Patmos ; and Samuel Rutherford's most intense aspirations for
that day are breathed out in Aberdeen.
His description of himself on one occasion is, — "A man often
borne down and hungry, and waiting for the marriage supper of
the Lamb." He is now gone to the " mountain of myrrh and
the hill of frankincense;" and there he no doubt still wonders at
the unopened treasures of Christ. But O for his insatiable de-
sires Christward in our day ! O for ten such men ' in Scotland to
stand in the gap, men who all day long find nothing but Christ
to rest in, and whose very sleep is a pursuing after Christ in dreams,
and who intensely desire to " awake with his likeness."
1 Gea xviiL 32.
EELIGIOUS LETTERS.
LETTER I.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved and Dear Sister, — My love in Christ remem-
bered— I have sent to you your daughter, Grizzel, with Robert Gor-
don, who came to fetch her. I am in good hopes that the seed of
God is in her, as in one born of God, and God's seed will come to
God's harvest. I have her promise that she will be Christ's, for
I have told her that she may promise much in his-w^orthy name ;
for he becometh caution' to his Father for all such as resolve and
promise to serve him. I shall remember her to God. I trust that
you will acquaint her with good company, and be diligent to
know with whom she loveth to haunt.
Remember Zion, and our necessities. I bless your daughter
from our Lord, and pray the Lord to give you joy and comfort of
her. Remember my love to your husband, to William and Sam-
uel, your sons.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, at all power in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, June 6th, 1624.
LETTER IL
TO A GENTLEWOMAN.
Mistress, — I beseech you to have me excused if the daily em-
ployments of my calling shall hinder me to see you, according as
I would wish ; for I dare not go abroad, since many of my people
are sick, and the time of our communion^ draweth near. But fre-
quent the company of your worthy and honest-hearted pastor,
Mr. Robert, to whom the Lord hath given the tongue of the
learned, to minister a word in due season to the weary. Remem-
ber me to him, and to your husband.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your affectionate Friend, S. R.
' Surety. 2 Dispensation of the Lord's Supper.
32 Rutherford's letters
LETTER III.
TO A CHRISTIAN GENTLEWOMAN.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered to you : — I was in-
deed sorrowful at my departure from you, especially since ye were
in such heaviness after your daughter's death ; yet I do persuade
myself that ye know that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ,
which is laid upon you, lieth upon your strong Saviour ; for Isaiah
saith, (chap. Ixiii. 9,) " In all your afflictions he is afflicted." O
blessed Second, who suffereth with you ! and glad may your soul
be, even to walk in the fiery furnace, with One like vmto the Son
of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage ! up your heart !
when ye do tire, he will bear both you and your burden. (Ps. Iv.
22.) Yet a little while, and ye shall see the salvation of God.
Remember of what age your daughter was ; so long was your
lease of her. If she was eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old
I know not ; but sure I am, seeing her term was come, and your
lease run out, ye can no more justly quarrel with your great Supe-
rior for taking his own, at his just term-day, than a poor farmer
can complain that his master taketh a portion of his own land to
himself when his lease is expired. Good mistress, if ye would not
be content that Christ should hold from you the heavenly inher-
itance, which is made yours by his death, shall not that same
Christ think hardly of you, if you refuse to give him your daugh-
ter willingly, who is a part of his inheritance and conquest?' I
pray the Lord to give you all your own, and to grace you with
patience, to give God his also. He is an ill debtor who payeth
that which he hath borrowed with a grudge. Indeed that long
loan of such a good daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ,
(as I believe,) deserveth more thanks at your Creditor's hands,
than that ye should gloom'^ and murmur when he craveth but his
own. I believe ye would judge them to be but thankless neigh-
bors who would pay you a sum of money after this manner. But
what? Do ye think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the
bosom of the Almighty ? Think not her absent who is in such a
friend's house. Is she lost to you, who is found to Christ? If
she were with a dear friend, although ye should never see her
again, your care of her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not
with a dear Friend, and gone higher, upon a certain hope that ye
shall, in the Resurrection, see her again, when (be ye sure) she
shall neither be hectic, nor consumed in body ? Ye would be
sorry either to be, or be esteemed, an atheist ; and yet not I, but
the Apostle, (1 Thess. iv. 13,) thinketh those to be hopeless atheists
who mourn excessively for the dead. But this is not a challenge^
on my part ; I do speak this only fearing your weakness, for your
' Acquisition by purchase or industry. 2 Let your countenance fall.
3 Accusation.
Rutherford's letters. 33
daughter was a part of yourself; and, therefore, nature m you
being, as it were, cut and halved, will indeed be grieved : but Ave
have to rejoice, that when a part of you is on earth, a great part
of you is glorified in Heaven. Follow her, but envy her not ; for,
indeed, it is self-love in us that niaketh us mourn for them that
die in the Lord. Why 1 Because for them we cannot mourn,
since they are never happy till they be dead ; therefore, we mourn
for our own private respect. Take heed, then, that in showing
your affection in mourning for your daughter, ye be not, out of
self-affection, mourning for yourself. Consider what the Lord is
doing in it. Your daughter is plucked out of the fire, and she
resteth from her labors ; and your Lord in that is trying you, and
casting you into the fire. Go through all fires to your rest : and
now remember that the eye of God is upon you, beholding your
patience and faith ; he delighteth to see you in the burning bush
and not consumed ; and he is gladly content that such a weak
woman as ye should send Satan away, frustrated of his design.
Now honor God, and shame the strong Roaring Lion, when ye
seem Aveakest. Should such an one as ye faint in the day of ad-
versity ? Call to mind the days of old : the Lord yet liveth : trust
in him, although he should slay you. Faith is exceedingly char-
itable, and believeth no evil of God. Now is the Lord laying in
the one scale of the balance your making conscience of submission
to his gracious Avill : and, in the other, your affection and love to
your daughter — which of the tAvo Avill ye then choose to satisfy ?
Be Avise, then ; and, as I trust that ye love Christ better than a
sinful Avoman, pass by your daughter, and kiss the Lord's rod.
Men do lop the branches off their trees round about, to the end
they may groAV up high and tall ; the Lord hath, in this Avay,
lopped your branch, in taking from you many children, to the end
ye should grow upAvard, like one of the Lord's cedars, setting your
heart above, Avhere Christ is at the right hand of the Father.
What is next, but that your Lord cut down the stock after he
hath cut the branches? Prepare yourself; ye are nearer your
daughter this day than you Avere yesterday ; Avhile ye prodigally
spend time in mourning for her, ye are speedily posting after her.
Run your race Avith patience ; let God have his own, and ask of
him, instead of your daughter, Avhom he hath taken from you, the
daughter of faith, which is patience ; and in patience possess your
soul. Lift up your head ; ye do not knoAV hoAV near your redemp-
tion doth draAV.
Thus, recommending you to the Lord, who is able to establish
you, I rest,
Your loving and affectionate Friend,
In the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 23, 1628.
3
34 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER IV.
TO THE VISCOUNTESS OP KENMURE.^
Madam, — All dutiful obedience in the Lord remembered — I have
heard of your Ladyship's infirmity and sickness with grief; yet I
trust that ye have learned to say, " It is the Lord, let him do what-
soever seemeth good in his eyes." It is now many years since the
apostate angels made a question, whether their will or the will of
their Creator should be done ; and since that time, froward man-
kind hath always, in that same suit of law, compeared'^ to plead
with them against God, in daily repining against his will : but
the Lord, being both party and judge, hath obtained a decreet,^
and saith, (Isaiah xlvi. 10,) "My counsel shall stand, and I will
do all my pleasure." It is then best for us, in the obedience of
faith, and in a holy submission, to give that to God which the law
of his almighty and just power Avill have of us. Therefore, madam,
your Lord willeth you, in all states of life, to say, " Thy will be
done in earth, as it is in Heaven ;" and herein shall ye have com-
fort, that He, who seeth perfectly through all your evils, and know-
eth the frame and constitution of your nature, and what is most
healthful for your soul, holdeth every cup of affliction to your head
with his own gracious hand. Never beheve that your tender-
hearted Saviour, who knoweth the strength of your stomach, will
mix that cup with one dram-weight of poison. Drink then with
the patience of the saints ; and the God of patience bless your
physic.
I have heard your Ladyship complain of deadness, and want of
the bestirring power of the hfe of God ; but, courage ! He, who
walked in the garden, and made a noise that made Adam hear
his voice, will also, at some times, walk in your soul, and make
you hear a more sweet word — ^yet ye will not always hear the
noise and the din of his feet when he walketh. Ye are, at such a
time, like Jacob mourning at the supposed death of Joseph, when
Joseph was living. The new creature, the image of the Second
Adam, is hving in you ; and yet ye are mourning at the supposed
death of the life of Christ in you. Ephraim is bemoaning and
mourning, (Jer. xxxi. 18,) Avhen he thinketh God is far off, and
heareth not; and yet God is like the Bridegroom, (Cant, ii.,)
standing only behind a thin wall, and laying to his ear ; for he
saith himself, (ver. 18,) " I have surely heard Ephraim bemoan-
ing himself." I have good confidence, madam, that Christ Jesus,
whom your soul, through forests and mountains, is seeking, is
within you : and yet I speak not this to lay a pillow under your
head, or to dissuade you from a holy fear of the loss of your
1 Lady Jean, third daughter of Archibald Campbell, seventh Earl of Argyll, and
the sister of the Martyr Archibald, Marquis of Argyll.
2 Appeared as in court. 3 Sentence.
Rutherford's letters. 35
Christ, 01- of provoking and stirring up the Beloved before he
please, by sin. I know that in spiritual confidence, the Devil will
come in, as in all other good works, and cry, "Half mine!" and
so endeavor to bring you under a fearful sleep, till He, whom
your soul lovcth, be departed from the door, and have left off
knocking ; and, therefore, here the Spirit of God must hold your
soul's feet in the golden mid-line, betwixt confident resting in the
arms of Christ, and presumptuous and drowsy sleeping in the
bed of fleshly security. Therefore, worthy Lady, so count little
of yourself, because of your own wretchedness and sinful drowsi-
ness, that ye count not also little of God in the course of his un-
changeable mercy ; for there be many Christians, most like unto
young sailors, who think the shore and the whole land do move,
when the ship and they themselves are moved ; just so, not a
few do imagine that God moveth, and saileth, and changeth
places, because their giddy souls are under sail, and subject to
alteration, to ebbing and flowing — but the foundation of the
Lord abideth sure. God knoweth that ye are his own. Wrestle,
fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray ; and then ye have all
the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of Christ within you.
Ye have now, madam, a sickness before you ; and also after that,
a death : gather then now fooTT for the journey. God give you
eyes to see through sickness and death, and to see something
beyond death. I doubt not that if Hell were betwixt you and
Christ, as a river which ye behooved to cross ere ye could come
at him, but ye would willingly put in your foot, and make
through to be at him, upon hope that he would come in himself
into the deepest of the river, and lend you his hand. Now I
believe that your hell is dried up, and that ye have only these
two shallow brooks, sickness and death, to pass through ; and
ye have also a promise that Christ will do more than meet you,
even that he will come himself and go with you foot for foot,
yea, and bear you in his arms. Oh then ! oh then ! for the joy
that is set before you, for the love of the Man (who is also God
over all, blessed forever,) that is standing upon the shore to
welcome you ; run your race with patience. The Lord go with
you. Your Lord will not have you, nor any of his servants, to
exchange for the worse. Death, in itself, includeth both the
death of the soul and the death of the body ; but to God's children
the bounds and the limits of death are abridged, and drawn into
a more narrow compass : so that when ye die, a piece of death
shall only seize upon you, or the least part of you shall die,
and that is, the dissolution of the body : for in Christ ye are
delivered from the Second Death ; and, therefore, as one born
of God, commit not sin, (although ye cannot live and not sin,)
and that serpent shall but eat your earthly part — as for your
soul, it is above the law of death. But it is fearful and dangerous
to be a debtor and a servant to sin ; for the count of sin ye will
not be able to make good before God, except Christ both count
and pay for you.
36 Rutherford's letters.
I trust also, madam, that ye will be careful to present to the
Lord the present estate of this decaying Kirk;* for what shall
be concluded in Parliament anent" her, the Lord knoweth. Sure
I am that the decree of a most fearful Parliament in Heaven is
at the very point of coming forth, because of the sins of the land ;
for we have cast away the law of the Lord, and despised the
words of the Holy One of Israel, (Isaiah v. 24.) "Judgment is
turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is
fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter." (Isaiah lix. 14.)
Lo, the Prophet, as if he had seen us and our Kirk,' resembleth
justice to be handled as an enemy, holden out at the ports of our
city, so is she banished ; and truth to a person sickly and dis-
eased, fallen down in a deadly swooning fit in the streets before
he can come to an house. The priests have caused many to
stumble at the Law, and have corrupted the Covenant of Levi,
(Mai. ii. 8.) But what will they do in the end? (Jer. v. 31.)
Therefore give the Lord no rest for Zion.
Stir up your husband, your brother, and all with whom ye are
in favor and credit, to stand upon the Lord's side against Baal. I
have good hope that your husband loveth the peace and prosperity
of Zion. The peace of God be upon him for his intended courses
anent' the establishment of a powerful ministry in this land.
Thus, not wilhng to weary your Ladyship farther, I commend
you, now and always, to the grace and mercy of that God who is
able to keep you that ye fall not. The Lord Jesus be with your
spirit.
Your Ladyship's servant, at all dutiful obedience in Christ,
Anwoth, July 27, 1G28. S. R.
LETTER V.
TO THE ELECT AND NOBLE LADY, MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Saluting your Ladyship with grace and mercy from
God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ — I was sorry at
my departure, leaving your Ladyship in grief; and should still be
grieved at it, if I were not assured that ye have One with you in
the furnace, whose visage is like unto the Son of God. I am glad
that ye have been acquainted, from your youth, with the wrest-
lings of God ; and that ye get scarce hberty to swallow down your
spittle, being casten ^ from furnace to furnace, knowing that if ye
were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much
of him, he would not spend so much physic upon you. All the
brethren and sisters of Christ must be conformed to his image and
copy in suffering, (Rom. viii.,) and some do more vively^ resemble
the copy than others. Think, madam, that it is a part of your
I Church. 2 Concerning.
3 Tossed. < In a lively manner.
Rutherford's letters. 37
glory to be enrolled among those whom one of the elders (Rev. vii.
14,) pointed out to John, " These are they which came out of great
tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb." Behold your Forerunner going out of
the world, all in a lake of blood ; and it is not ill to die as he did.
Fulfil, with joy, the remnant of the grounds and remainders of the
afflictions of Christ in your body.
Ye have lost a child— nay, she is not lost to you, who is found
to Christ ; she is not sent away, but only sent before ; like unto
a star, which, going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but
shineth in another hemisphere ; ye see her not, yet she doth shine
in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she
wanteth of time, that she hath gotten of eternity ; and ye have
to rejoice that ye have now some plenishing' up in Heaven.
Build your nest upon no tree here ; for ye see God hath sold the
forest to death ; and every tree, whereupon we would rest, is ready
to be cut down, to the end that we might flee^ and mount up, and
build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. What
ye love besides Jesus, your husband, is an adulterous lover : now
it is God's special blessing to Judah, that he will not let her find
her paths in following her strange lovers. (Hos. ii. 6,) " There-
fore behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a
wall, that she shall not find her paths." (Ver. 7,) "And she shall
follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them." Oh
thrice happy Judah, when God buildeth a double-stone wall be- .
twixt her and the fire of Hell ! The world, and the things of the
world, madam, is tlie lover that ye naturally affect, beside your
own husband, Christ. The hedge of thorns, and the wall which
God buildeth in j^our way, to hinder you from this lover, is the
thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, in-
iquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of wordly comfort,
fear of God's anger for old unrepented-of sins. What lose ye if
God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker ? God be blessed !
the Lord will not let you find your paths. Return to your first
husband. Do not weary, neitlier think that death walketh toward
you with a slow pace. Ye must be riper ere ye be shaken ; your
days are no longer tlian Job's, that were swifter than a post, and
passed away as the ships of desire, and as the eagle that hasteth
for the prey. (Job ix. 25, 26,) There is less sand in your glass >^
now than there was yesterday; this span-length of ever-posting
time will soon be ended ; but the greater is the mercy of God, the
more years ye get to advise upon what terms, and upon what con-
ditions, ye cast your soul into the huge gulf of never-ending eter-
nity. The Lord hath told you what ye should be doing till he
come : wait and hasten, saith Peter, for the coming of our Lord.
All is night that is here, in respect of ignorance and daily ensuing
troubles, one always making way to another, as the ninth wave
of the sea to the tenth ; therefore, sigh and long for the dawning
I Furniture, 2 Fly.
X
38 Rutherford's letters.
of that morning, and the breaking of that day of the coming of
the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away. Persuade
yourself that the King is coming. Read his letter sent before him,
(Rev. iii. 11,) "Behold, I come quickly." Wait, with the Avearied
nio-ht-watch, for the breaking of the eastern sky, and think tltat
ye have not a morrow ; as the wise father said, Avho, being invi-
ted against to-morrow to dine with his friends, answered, "These
many days I have had no morrow at all." I am loath to weary
you. Show yourself a Christian, by suffering witliout murmuring,
for which sin fourteen thousand and seven hundred were slain.
(Numb. xvi. 49.) In patience possess your soul — they lose nothing
who gain Christ.
Thus, remembering my brother's and my wife's humble service
to your Ladyship, I commend you to the mercy and grace of our
Lord Jesus, assuring you that your day is coming, and that God's
mercy is abiding you.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, at all dutiful obedience, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 15, 1629.
LETTER VL
TO MY LADY KENMURE,
Madam, — ^Saluting you in Jesus Clirist — to my grief I must bid
you (it may be) forever farewell, on paper, having small assurance
ever to see your face again till the last general assembly, where
the whole Church universal shall meet ; yet promising, by his
grace, to present your Ladyship, and your burdens to Him, who
is able to save you, and to give you an inheritance with the saints,
after a more special manner than ever I have done before.
Ye are going to a country where the Sun of righteousness in
the Gospel shineth not so clearly as in this kingdom ; but if ye
Avould know where He, whom your soul loveth, doth rest, and
where he feedeth at the noon-tide of the day, wherever ye be, get
ye forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed yourself beside the
shepherds' tents, (Cant. i. 7, 8,) that is, ask for some of the w^atch-
men of the Lord's city, who will tell you truly, and will not lie,
where you shall find Him, whom your soul loveth. I trust that
ye are so betrothed in marriage to the true Christ, that ye will not
give your love to any false Christ. Ye know not how soon your
marriage-day will come ; nay, is not eternity hard upon you ? It
were time, then, that ye had your wedding-garment in readiness.
Be not sleeping at your Lord's coming : I pray God that ye may
be upon your feet standing when he knocketh. Be not discour-
aged to go from this country to another part of the Lord's earth —
the earth is his, and the fulness thereof (Psalm xxiv. 1.) This is
the Lord's lower house ; and, while we are lodged here, we have
Rutherford's letters. 39
no assurance to lie ever in one chamber, but must be content to
remove from one corner of our Lord's ncthcr-house to another,
resting in hope that, when we come up to the Lord's upper city,
Jerusalem that is above, we shall remove no more ; because then
we shall be at home. And, go whithersoever ye will, if your Lord
go with you, ye are at home ; and your lodging is ever taken before
night, so long as He, who is Israel's dwelling-house, is your home.
(Psalm xc. 1.) Believe me, madam, my mind is, that ye are well
lodged; and that in your house there are fair ease-rooms' and
pleasant lights, ^if ye can in faith lean down your head upon the
breast of Jesus Christ ; and till this be, ye will never get a sound
sleep. Jesus, Jesus, be your shadow and your covering — it is a
sweet soul-sleep to lie in the arms of Christ, for his breath is very
sweet.
Pray for poor friendless Zion ! Alas ! no man will speak for
her now, although at home, in her own country, she hath good
friends, her liusband, Christ, and his Father, her father-in-law.
Beseech your husband to be a friend to Zion, and to pray for her.
I have received many and divers dashes and heavy strokes since
the Lord called me to the ministry ; but, indeed, I esteem your
departure from amongst us the weightiest : but I perceive that
God will have us to be deprived of whatsoever we idolize, that he
may have his own room. I see exceedingly small fruit of my
ministry, and would be glad to know of one soul to be my crown -
and rejoicing in the day of Christ. Though I spend my strength
in vain, yet my labor is with my God. (Isaiah xlix. 4.) I wish
and pray that the Lord would harden my face against all, and
make me to learn to go with my face against a storm.
Again, I commend you, body and spirit, to Him, who hath loved
us, and washed us from our sins, in his own blood. Grace, grace,
grace, forever, be with you. Pray, pray continually.
Your Ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Sept. 1-1, 1629.
LETTER VII.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Loving and Dear Sister, — If ever you would pleasure me,
entreat the Lord for me, now when I am so comfortless, and so
full of heaviness, that I am not able to stand under the burden
any longer. The Almighty hath doubled liis stripes upon me ;
for my wife is so sore tormented, night and day, that I have won-
dered why the Lord tarrieth so long. My life is bitter unto me,
and I fear that the Lord be my contrary party. It is (I now know
by experience) hard to keep sight of God in a storm, especially
when he hideth himself for the trial of his children. If he would
1 Rooms for repose.
40 Rutherford's letters.
be pleased to remove his hand, I have a purpose to seek him more
than I have done. Happy are they that can win away' with their
soul : I am afraid of his judgments. I bless my God, that there
is a death and a heaven. I would weary to begin again to be a
Christian, so bitter is it to drink of the cup that Christ drank of,
if I knew not that there is no poison in it. God give us not of it
whill^ we vomit again, for we have sick souls when God's physic
worketh not. Pray that God would not lead my wife into tempta-
tion. Wo" is my heart that I have done so little against the king-
dom of Satan in my calling ; for he would fain attempt to make
me blaspheme God in his face. I believe, I believe, in the strength
of Him, who hath put me into his work, that he shall fail in that
which he seeketh. I have comfort in this, that my Captain, Christ,
hath said I must fight and overcome the world, (John xvi. 33,) and
with a weak, spoiled, weaponless devil, (John xiv. 30.) " The
Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."
Desire Mr. Robert to remember me, if he love me. Grace, grace
be with you, and all yours. Remember Zion.
There is a letter procured from the King, by Mr. John Maxwell,
to urge conformity, to give the Communion at Christmas, in Edin-
burgh. Hold fast that which ye have, that no man take the crown
from you.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, Nov. 17, 1629.
LETTER VHL
TO MY LADY KENMURE
Madam, — I have longed exceedingly to hear of your life and
health, and growth in the grace of God. I lacked the opportunity
of a bearer, in respect I did not understand of the hasty departure
of the last, by whom I might have saluted your Ladyship ; and,
therefore, I could not write before this time. I entreat you, madam,
to let me have two lines from you, concerning your present condi-
tion. I know that ye are in grief and heaviness ; and if it were
not so, ye might be afraid, because then your way should not be
so like the way that our Lord saith leadeth to the New Jerusalem.
Sure I am that, if ye knew what was before you, or if ye saw but
some glances of it, ye would with gladness swim through the
present tloods of sorrow, spreading forth your arms out of desire
to be at land. If God has given you the earnest of the Spirit, as
part of payment of God's principal sum, ye have to rejoice ; for
our Lord will not lose his earnest, neither will he go back nor re-
pent him of the bargain. If ye find, at some time, a longing to
see God, joy in the assurance of that sight, howbeit that feast be
1 Escape. 2 Till. 3 Grieved.
Rutherford's letters. 41
hut like the Passover, that cometh ahoiit only once a year. Peace
of conscience, liberty of prayer, the doors of God's treasure casten
up' to the soul, and a clear sight of himself looking out, and say-
ing, with a smiling countenance, " Welcome to me, afflicted soul,"
this is the earnest that he giveth sometimes, and which maketh
glad the heart, and is an evidence that the bargain will hold.
But to the end that ye may get this earnest, it were good to
come oft into terms of speech with God, both in prayer and hear-
ing of the word ; for this is the house-of-wine, where ye meet Avith
your Well-beloved. Here it is where he kisseth you with the
kisses of his mouth, and where ye feel the smell of his garments ;
and they have indeed a most fragrant and glorious smell. Ye
must, I say, wait upon him, and be often communing with Him,
whose lips are as lilies, dropping sweet-smelhng myrrh, and by
the moving whereof he will assuage your grief; for the Christ,
that saveth you, is a speaking Christ ; the Church knoweth him
(Cant, ii.) by his voice, and can discern his voice among a thou-
sand. I say this, to the end that ye should not love those masks
of Anti-christian ceremonies, which the Church, where ye are for
a time, hath casten^ over the Christ, whom your soul loveth.
This is to set before you a dumb Christ. But when our Lord
cometh, he speaketh to the heart in the simplicity of the Gospel.
I have neither tongue nor pen, to express to you the happiness
of such as are in Christ. When ye have sold all that ye have,
and bought the field wherein this pearl is, ye will think it no bad
market : for if ye be in him, all his is yours ; and ye are in him ;
" therefore, because he liveth, ye shall hve also." (John xiv. 19.)
And what is that else, but as if the Son had said, " I will not have
Heaven, except my redeemed ones be with me ? they and I can-
not live asunder — abide in me and I in you." (John xv. 4.) Oh
sweet communion, when Christ and we are through other,^ and
are no longer two ! " Father, I will that those Avhom thou hast
given me, be with me where I am, to behold my glory, that thou
hast given me." (John xvii. 24.) Amen : dear Jesus, let it be
according to that word.
I wonder that ever your heart should be casten^ down, if ye be-
lieve this truth. And they are not worthy of Jesus Christ, who
will not suffer forty years' trouble for him, since they have such
glorious promises. But we fools beheve those promises as the
man that read Plato's writings concerning the immortality of the
soul. So long as the book was in his hand, he beheved that all
was true, and that tlie soul could not die ; but so soon as he laid
by the book, presently he began to imagine, that the soul is but a
smoke or airy vapor, that perishcth with the expiring of the breath :
so we at starts do assent to the sweet and precious promises ; but
laying aside God's book, we begin to call all in question. It is
faith, indeed, to believe without a pledge, and to hold the heart
constant at this work, and when we doubt, to run to the Law and
1 Thrown open. 2 Thrown. 3 Promiscuously united. * Cast,
42 Rutherford's letters.
to the Testimony, and stay there. Madam, hold you here. Here
is your Father's testament, read it : in it he hath left to you re-
mission of sins and life everlasting. If all that ye have here be
crosses and troubles, downcastings, frequent desertions, and depart-
ure of the Lord, who is suiting' you in marriage, courage ! He,
who is wooer and suiter, should not be an household-man with
you, till ye and he come up to his Father's house together. He
purposeth to do you good at your latter end, (Deut. viii. 1(3,) and"^
to give you rest from the days of adversity. (Psalm xciv. 13.) It
is -good to bear the yoke of God in your youth. (Lam. iii. 27.)
Turn in to your strong-hold as a prisoner of hope. (Zee. ix. 12.)
" For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it
shall speak and not lie : though it tarry, wait for it ; because it
will surely come, it will not tarry." (Hab. ii. 3.) Hear himself
saying, (Isa. xxvi. 20,) " Come my people," — rejoice, he calleth on
you — " Enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about
thee ; hide thyself, as it were for a little moment, till the indigna-
tion be overpast." Believe then, " believe and be saved." Think
it not hard, if ye get not your will, nor your delights in this life ;
God will have you to rejoice in nothing but himself. God forbid
that ye should rejoice in anything but in the cross of Christ. (Gal.
vi. 16.)
Our Church, madam, is decaying ; she is like Ephraim's cake,
and gray hairs are here and there upon her, and she knoweth it
not. (Hos. vii. 9.) She is old and gray-headed, near the grave,
and no man layeth it to heart — her wine is sour, and is corrupted.
Now if the wife of Phineas did live, she might travail in birth and
die, to see the Ark of God taken, and the glory departing from our
Israel — the power and life of religion is away, " Wo unto us, for
the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched
out." (Jcr. vi. 4.) Madam, Zion is the ship wherein ye are carried
to Canaan. If she suffer shipwreck, ye will be casten" overboard,
upon death and life, to swim to land upon broken boards. It were
time for us, by prayer, to put upon^ our Master-pilot, Jesus, and to
cry, " Master, save us, we perish !"
Grace, grace be with you. We would think it a blessing to our
Kirk* to see you here ; but our sins withhold good things from us.
The great Messenger of the covenant preserve you, in body and
in spirit.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, Feb. 1, 1630.
LETTER IX.
TO THE LADY K E N M U R E .
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you — I
received your Ladyship's letter, in the which I perceive that your
1 Wooing. 2 Cast. 3 Importune. « Church.
Rutherford's letters. 43
case in this world smelleth of worship and communion with the
Son of God in his sufferings. Ye cannot, ye must not, have a
more pleasant or more easy condition here, than He had, who,
through afflictions, was made perfect. (Heb. ii. 10.) We may
indeed think, cannot God bring us to Heaven with ease and pros-
perity? Who doubteth that he can? But his infinite wisdom
thinketh, and decreeth the contrary ; and w^e cannot see a reason
for it, yet he hath a most just reason. We never with our eyes
saw our own soul, yet we have a soul ; we see many rivers, but
we know not their first spring and original fountain, yet they
have a beginning. Madam, when ye are come to the other side
the water, and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious
eternity, and look back again to the waters, and to your wearisome
journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer
to the bottom of God's Avisdom, ye sliall, then, be forced to say,
^'If God had done otherwise with me than he hath done, I had
never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory." It is your
part now to believe, and suffer, and hope, and wait on : for I pro-
test, in the presence of that all-discerning Eye, who knoweth what
I write, and what I think, that I would not want the sweet ex-
perience of the consolations of God, for all the bitterness of afflic-
tion : nay, whether God come to his children with a rod or a
crown, if he come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome
Jesus, what w'ay soever thou comest, if we can get a sight of thee.
And sure I am that it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to
the bed-side, and draw by the curtains, and say, " Courage ! I am
thy salvation !" than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and
never to be visited of God.
Worthy and dear Lady, in the strength of Christ, fight and
overcome. Ye are now your lone ; ' but ye may have, for the
seeking, Three always in your compan}^, the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit — I trust they are near you. Ye are now deprived of
the comfort of a lively ministry, so was Israel in their captivity :
yet hear God's promise to them, (Ez. xi. 16,) "Therefore say,
thus saith the Lord God, 'Although I have cast them far off' among
the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the
countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary, in the coun-
tries where they shall come.' " Behold a sanctuary ! for a sanc-
tuary God himself, in the place and room of the Temple of Jeru-
salem. I trust in God that, carrying this temple about with you,
ye shall see Jehovah's beauty in his house.
We are in great fears of a great and fearful trial to come upon
the Kirk^of God; for those, who would build their houses and
nests on the ashes of mourning Jerusalem, have drawn our King
upon hard and dangerous conclusions, against such as are termed
Puritans, for the rooting of them out. Our prelates — the Lord
take the keys of his house from these bastard porters ! — assure us
that for sucJi as will not conform, there is nothing but imprison-
1 By yourself alone. 2 Church.
44 RUTHKRFORn's LETTERS.
ment and deprivation. The Spouse of Jesus shall ever be in the
fire ; -but I trust in my God that she shall not be consumed, because
of the good-will of Him, who dwelleth in the bush, for he dwelleth
in it with good-will. All sorts of crying sins, without controlment,
abound in our land. The glory of the Lord is departing from
Israel, and the Lord is looking back over his shoulder to see if any
will say, "Lord! tarry," and no man requesteth him to stay.
Corrupt and false doctrine is openly preached by the idol-shepherds
of the land. For myself I have daily griefs, through the disobe-
dience unto, and contempt of the word of God.
I was summoned before the High Commission by a profligate
person in this Parish, convicted of incest. Li the business, Mr.
Alexander Colville, for respect to your Ladyship, was my great
fiiend, and wrote a most kind letter to me. — The Lord give him
mercy in that day. Upon the day of my compearance,' the sea,
and winds, refused to give passage to the Bishop of St. Andrew's.
I entreat yoem- Ladyship, to thank Mr. Alexander Colville, with
two lines of a letter.
My wife now, after a long disease and torment, for the space of
a year and a month, is departed this life ; — the Lord hath done it ;
blessed be his name. I have been diseased of a fever tertian for
the space of thirteen weeks, and am yet in that sickness, so that
I preach but once on the Sabbath with great difficulty. I am not
able either to visit, or examine the congregation.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience, S. R.
Anwoth, June 26th, 1G30,
LETTER X.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved and Dear Sister, — My love, in the Lord
Jesus, remembered — I understand that you are still under the
Lord's visitation, in your former business with your enemies, which
is God's dealing. For, till He take his children out of the furnace,
who knoweth how long they should be tried, there is no deliver-
ance ; but after God's highest and fullest tide, that the sea of
trouble is gone over the souls of his children, then cometh the
gracious long-hoped-for ebbing, and drying up of the waters. Dear
sister, do not faint ; the wicked may hold the bitter cup to your
head, but God mixeth it, and there is no poison in it ; they strike,
but God moveth the rod ; Shimei curseth, but it is because the
Lord biddeth him.
I tell you, and I have it from Him before whom I stand for
God's people, that there is a decreet^ given out in the Great Court
of the Highest Heavens, that your present troubles shall be dis-
1 Appearance, in obedience to a legal citation, 2 Sentence.
Rutherford's letters. 45
persed as the morning cloud, and God will bring forth your right-
eousness as the light of the noontide of the day. Let me entreat
you in Christ's n^me, to keep a good conscience in your proceed-
ings in that matter, and beware of yovirself — yourself is a more
dangerous enemy than I, or any without you. Innocence, and an
upright cause, is a good advocate before God, and will plead for
you, and shall win your cause ; and count much of your Master's
approbation, and his smiling. He is now as the king that is gone
to a far country. God seemeth to be from home, (if I may say so,)
yet he seeth the ill servants, who say, " Our Master deferreth his
coming," and so strike their fellow-servants. But patience, my
beloved, Christ, the King, is coming home ; the evening is at
hand, and he will ask an account of his servants. Make a fair
clear count to him. So carry yourself, as at night you may say,
"Master, I have wronged none : behold, ye have your own with
advantage." Oh your soul then will esteem much one of God's
kisses and embracenients, in the testimony of a good conscience !
The wicked, howbeit they be casting many evil thoughts, bitter
words, and sinful deeds behind their back, yet they are, in so doing,
clerks to their own process, and doing nothing all their lives, but
gathering dittays' against themselves; for God is angry at the
wicked every day. And I hope your present process shall be
sighted 2 one day by Him who knoweth your just cause ; and the
bloody tongues, crafty foxes, double-ingrained hypocrites, shall
appear as they are before his Majesty, when he shall take the
mask off their faces : and oh ! thrice happy wnll your soul be
then, when God findeth you covered with nothing but the white
robe of the saints' innocence, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
You have been of late in the King's wine-cellar, where you
were welcomed by the Lord of the inn, upon a condition that you
would walk in love. Put on love, and brotherly kindness, and
long suffering. Wait as long upon the favor and turned hearts
of enemies as your Christ waited upon you, and as dear Jesus
stood at your soul's door with dewy and rainy locks, the long,
cold night. Be angry, but sin not. I persuade myself that that
holy unction within you, which teacheth you all things, is also
saying, " Overcome evil with good." If that had not spoken in
your soul, at the tears of your aged Pastor, you would not have
agreed, and forgiven his foolish son who wronged you : but my
Master bade me tell you, that God's blessing shall be upon you
for it ; and from him I say, "Grace, grace, and everlasting peace
be upon you." It is my prayer for you, that your carriage may
grace and adorn the Gospel of that Lord who hath graced you.
I hear that your husband also was sick, but I beseech you, in the
bowels of Jesus, to welcome every rod of God ; for I find not, in
the whole book of God, a greater note of the child of God, than to
fall down and kiss the feet of an angry God ; and when he seem-
eth to put you away from him, and to loose your hands that grip'
1 Indictments. 2 Examined. 3 Grasp.
46 Rutherford's letters.
him, to look up in faith, and say, " I shall not, I will not be put
away from thee : howbeit thy Majesty draw to free thyself of me,
yet. Lord ! give me leave to hold and cleave uuto thyself" I
shall pray that your husband may return in peace. Your de-
creet' Cometh from Heaven, look up thither; for many (saith
Solomon) seek the face of the ruler, but every man's judgment
Cometh of the Lord ; and be glad that it is so, for Christ is the
clerk of your process, and will see that all go right : and I per-
suade myself, that he is saying, "Yonder servants of mine are
wronged ; for my blood. Father, give them justice." Think you
not, dear sister, but our High Priest, our Jesus, the Master of re-
quests, presenteth our bills of complaint to the great Lord Justice ?
Yea, I believe it, since he is our Advocate, and Daniel calleth him
the Spokesman, whose hand presenteth all to the Father.
For other businesses, I say nothing, whill^ the Lord give me to
see your face. I am credibly informed, that multitudes of Eng-
land, and especially worthy preachers, and silenced preachers of
London, are gone to New England ; and I know one learned holy
preacher, Avho hath written against the Arminians, who is gone
thither. Oar blessed Lord Jesus, who cannot get leave to sleep
with his Spouse in this Land, is going to seek an inn where he
will be better entertained ; and what marvel ? Wearied Jesus,
after he had travelled from Geneva, by the ministry of Avorthy Mr.
Knox, and was laid down in his bed, and reformation begun, and
the curtains drawn, had not gotten his dear eyes well together,
when irreverent bishops came in, and, with the din and noise of
ceremonies, holy-days, and other Romish corruptions, awoke our
Beloved. Others came to his bed-side, and drew the curtains, and
put hands on his servants, banished, deprived and confined them ;
and for the pulpit, they got a stool and a cold fire in the Black-
ness :^ and the nobility drew the covering off him, and have made
him a poor naked Christ, in spoiling his servants of the tithes and
Mvirk-rents : and now there is such a noise of crying sins in the
land, as the want of a knowledge of God, of mercy and truth,
such swearing, whoring, lying, and blood touching blood, that
Christ is putting on his clothes, and making him, like an ill-han-
dled stranger, to go to other lands. Pray him, dear sister, to iy
down again with his Beloved.
Remember my dearest love to John Gordon, to whom I shall
write when I am strong ; and to John Brown, Grizzel, Samuel,
and WiUiam — Grace upon them. As you love Christ, keep
Christ's favor; and put not upon ^ him when he sleepeth, to
awake him before he please.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Brother in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, July 21, 1630.
1 Sentence. 2 Till. 3 Blackness Castle, on the Firth of Forth.
* Church. 5 To put upon, to importune.
Rutherford's letters. 47
LETTER XI.
' i FOR MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — I have been thinking, since my de-
parture from you, of the pride and malice of your adversaries :
and ye may not (since ye have lieard the Book of the Psahns so
often) take hardly with this ; for David's enemies snufied at him,
and through the pride of their hearts said, "The Lord will not
require it," (Psalm x. 13.) I beseech you, therefore, in the bowels
of Christ, to set before your eyes the patience of your ^'ore-rimrier,
Jesus, " Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when he
suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to Hijn that
judgeth righteously." (1 Pet. ii. 23.) And, since our Lord and
Redeemer with patience received many a black stroke on his glo-
rious body, and many a buffet of the unbelieving world, and saith
of himself. (Isaiah 1. 6,) " I gave my back to the smiters, and my
cheeks to them that plucked off the hair ; I hid not my face from
shame and spitting," follow him, and think it not hard that you
receive a blow with your Lord : take part with Jesus of his suffer-
ings, and glory in the marks of Christ. If this storm were over,
you must prepare yourself for a new wound. For, five thousand
years ago, our Lord proclaimed deadly war betwixt the Seed of
the Woman and the seed of the Serpent. And marvel not that
one toAvn cannot keep the children of God and the children of the
Devil ; for one belly could not keep Jacob and Esau ; one house
could not keep peaceably together Isaac the Son of the Promise,
and Ishmael the Son of the Hand-maid. Be you upon Christ's
side of it, and care not what flesh can do. Hold yourself fast by
your Saviour, howbeit ye be buffeted, and those that follow him.
"Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be." See 2 Cor. iv.
8, " We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we are per-
plexed, but not in despair ;" (ver. 9,) " persecuted, but not forsaken;
cast down, but not destroyed." If you can possess yovu' soul in
patience, their day is coming.
Worthy and Dear Sister, know how to carry yourself in trouble :
and when ye are hated and reproached, the Lord showeth it to
you. (Psahii xliv. 17.) " All this is come upon us, yet have we
not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant."
(Psalm cxix. 92.) "Unless thy law had been my delights, I had
perished in mine affliction." Keep God's covenant in your trials.
Hold you by his blessed word, and sin not. Flee anger, wrath,
grudging, envying, fretting. P^orgive an hundred pence to your
fellow-servant, because your Lord hath forgiven you ten thou-
sand talents. For, I assure you by the Lord, that your adversa-
ries shall get no advantage against you except ye sin, and offend
your Lord in your sufferings. But the way to overcome is, by
patience, forgiving, and praying for your enemies, in doing
48 Rutherford's letters.
whereof you heap coals upon their heads, and your Lord will
open a door to you in your trouble. Wait upon him, as the night-
watch waiteth for the morning. He will not tarry ; go up to your
watch-tower, and come not down, but by prayer, and faith, and
hope, wait on. When the sea is full, it will ebb again ; and, so
soon as the wicked are come to the top of their pride, and are
waxed high and mighty, then is their change approaching — They
that believe make not haste.
Remember Zion, forget her not ; for her enemies are many, for
the nations are gathered together against her ; " But they know
not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his coun-
sel ; for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise
and thresh, O Daughter of Zion." (Micah iv. 12, 13.) Behold,
God hath gathered his enemies together as sheaves to the thresh-
ing— let us stay and rest upon these promises. Now again, I
trust in our Lord, that ye shall by faith sustain yourself, and com-
fort yourself in your Lord, and be strong in his power ; for you
are in the beaten, and common way to Heaven, when you are
under our Lord's crosses. Ye have reason to rejoice in it more
than in a crown of gold, and to rejoice, and be glad to bear the
reproaches of Christ.
I rest — recommending you, and yours, forever, to the grace and
mercy of God.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Feb. 11, 1631.
LETTER Xn.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved in the Lord, — Ye are not unacquainted
with the day of our Communion. I entreat, therefore, the aid of
your prayers for that great work, which is one of our feast-days,
wherein our Well-beloved, Jesus, rejoiceth, and is merry with his
friends. Good cause have we to wonder at his love, since the day
of his death was such a sorrowful day to him, even the day when
his mother, the Kirk' crowned him with thorns, and he had many
against him, and compeared ^ his lone^ in the open fields against
them all — yet he delighteth with us to remember that day. Let
us love him, and be glad and rejoice in his salvation. I am con-
fident that you shall see the Son of God that day ; and I dare, in
his name, invite you to his banquet. Many a time you have been
well entertained in his house, and he changeth not upon his
friends, nor chideth them for too great kindness. Yet I speak not
this to make you leave off to pray for me, who have nothing of
myself, but in so far as daily I receive from Him, who is made of
his Father a running-over fountain, at which I and others may
1 Church. 2 Appeared. 3 By himself alone.
Rutherford's letters. 49
come with thirsty souls, and fill our vessels. Long hath this well
been standing open to us. Lord Jesus, lock it not up again upon
us. I am sorry for our desolate Kirk ;i yet I dare not but trust,
that so long as there be any of God's lost money here, he will not
blow out the candle. The Lord make fair candlesticks in his
house, and remove the blind lights !
I have been, this time by-passed, thinking much of the incoming
of the Kirk' of the Jews. Pray for them. When they were
in their Lord's house, at their Father's elbow, they were long-
ing for the coming of their Little Sister, the Kirk' of the Gen-
tiles. They said to their Lord, (Cant. viii. ver. 8,) " We have a
little Sister, and she hath no breasts ; what shall we do for our
Sister in the day when she shall be spoken for ?" Let us give
them a meeting. What shall we do for our elder Sister, the
Jews? Lord Jesus give them breasts! That were a glad day,
to see us and them both set down at one table, and Christ at the
head of the table. Then would our Lord come shortly with his
fair guard, to hold his great court.
Dear sister, be patient for the Lord's sake, under the wrongs
that you suffer of the wicked. Your Lord shall make ye see your
desire on your enemies ; some of them shall be cut off. (Job xv.
ver. 33,) They shall shake off their unripe grapes as the vine, and
cast off their flower as the olive : God will make them like unripe
sour grapes, shaken off the tree with the blast of God's wrath ;
and, therefore, pity them, and pray for them. Others of them
nuist remain to exercise you ; God hath said of them, Let the tares
grow up whilP harvest. (Matt, xiii.) It proveth you to be your
Lord's wheat. Be patient, Christ went to Heaven with many a
wrong. His visage and countenance were all marred more than
the sons of men. Ye may not be above your Master. Many a
black stroke received innocent Jesus, and he received no mends,*
but referred them all to the great Court-day, when all things shall
be righted.
I desire to hear from you within a day or two, if Mr. Robert re-
main in his purpose to come and help us. God will give you joy
of your children. I pray for them, by their names. I bless you,
from the Lord, your husband and children. — Grace, grace and
mercy be multiplied upon you.
Yours, in the Lord, forever, S. R.
Anwoth, May 7, 1631.
LETTER Xm.
FOR MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — My love in Christ remembered — I
have received a letter from Edinburgh, certainly informing me,
' Church. 2 Till. 3 Reparation.
4
50 Rutherford's letters.
that the English service, and the organs, and King James's Psalms,
are to be imposed upon our Kirk,' and that the Bishops are deal-
ing for a General Assembly. A. R. hath confirmed the news also,
and saith, he spoke with Sir William Alexander, who is to come
down with his Prince's warrant to that effect. I am desired, in
the received letter, to acquaint the best affected about me with
that storm ; therefore, I entreat you, and charge you, in tlie Lord's
name, to pray; but do not communicate this to any whilP I see
you. My heart is broken at the remembrance of it ; and it was
my fear, and answereth to my last letter, except one, that I wrote
unto you.
Dearly beloved, be not casten' down, but let us, as the Lord's
doves, take us to our wings, for other armor we have none, and
flee into the hole of the Rock. It is true that A. R. saith that the
wortiiiest men in England are banished and silenced, about the
number of sixteen or seventeen choice Gospel-preachers, and that
the persecution is already begun. Howbeit, I do not write this
unto you with a dry face, yet I am confident in the Lord's strength,
that Christ and his side shall overcome ; and you shall be assured
that the Kirk' were not a Kirk,' if it were not so. As our dear
husband, in wooing his Kirk,' received many a black stroke, so
his bride in wooing him getteth many blows ; and in this wooing
there are strokes upon both sides. Let it be so. The Devil shall
not make the marriage go back, neither can he tear the contract ;
the end shall be mercy. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we have
no warrant of God to leave off all lawful means. I have been
writing to you the counsels and draughts of men against the Kirk ;'
but they know not, as Micah saith, the counsel of Jehovah. The
great men of the world may make ready the fiery furnace for Zion,
but, trow ye that they can cause the fire to burn? No. He that
made the fire, I trust, will not say Amen to their decreets.* I trust
m my Lord, that God hath not subscribed their bill, and that their
conclusions have not yet passed our Great King's seal. There-
fore, if ye think good, address yourself first to the Lord, and then
to A. R., anent* the business that you know.
I am most unkindly handled by the Presbytery ; and, as if I
had been a stranger, and not a member of that seat to sit in judg-
ment with them, I was summoned, by their order, as a witness
against B. A. ; but they have got no advantage in that matter.
Other particulars you shall hear, God willing, at meeting.
Anent" the matter betwixt you and J. E., I remember it to God.
I entreat you in the Lord, to be submissive to his will ; for the
higher that their pride mount up, they are the nearer a fall : the
Lord will more and more discover that man. Let your husband,
in all matters of judgment, take Christ's part for the defence of the
poor, and needy, and oppressed, for the maintenance of equit\r and
justice in the town. And take you no fear that He will take your
1 Church. 8 Till. 3 Cast. * Sentences.
5 Concernins.
Rutherford's letters. 51
part, and then you are strong enough. What? Howbeit ye re-
ceive indignities, for your Lord's sake let it be so. When he will
put His holy hand up to your face in Heaven, and dry your face,
and wipe the tears from your eyes, judge ye if ye will not have
cause then to rejoice ?
Anent* other particulars, if ye would speak wdth me, appoint
any of the first three days of the next week, in Carlton, when
Carlton is at home, and acquaint me with your desires.
Remember me to God, and my dearest affection to your husband :
and, for Zion's sake, hold not your peace.
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you, and your husband,
and children.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, June 2, 1631.
LETTER XIV.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Dear Mistress, — I have not time, this day, to write to you ;
but God, knowing my present state, and the necessities of my call-
ing, will, I hope, spare my mother's life for a time — for the which
I have cause to thank my Lord. I entreat you not to be cast
down, for that which I wrote before to you, anent' the planting
of a minister in your town. Believe, and you shall see the sal-
vation of God. I write this because, when you suffer, my heart
suffereth with you. I do believe that your soul shall have joy
in your labors and holy desires for that work.
Grace upon you, and your husband, and your children.
Yours ever, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Having saluted you in the Lord Jesus — I thought
it my duty, having the occasion of this bearer, to write again
unto your Ladyship. Though I have no new purpose, but what
I wrote of before, yet ye cannot be too often awakened to go
forward toward your city, since your way is long, and, (for any-
thing ye know,) your day is short ; and ydiu- Lord requireth of
you, as ye advance in years, and steal forward insensibly towards
eternity, that your faith may grow and ripen for the Lord's
harvest. For the great Husbandman giveth a season to his
fruits, that they may come to maturity ; and having got their
1 Concerning.
52 Rutherford's letters.
fill of the tree, that they may be then shaken, and gathered in
for his use; whereas the wicked rot upon the tree, and their
branch shall not be green ; (Job xv. 33,) " He shall shake off
his unripe grapes as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as
the olive." It is God's mercy to you, madam, that he giveth you
your fill, even to loathing, of this bitter world, that ye may
willingly leave it, and, like a full and satisfied banqueter, long
for the drawing of the table ; and at last, having trampled under
your feet all the rotten pleasures that are under sun and moon,
and having, '-rejoiced as though ye rejoiced not, and having
bought as though ye possessed not," (1 Cor. vii. 30,) ye may,
like an old crazy ship, arrive at your Lord's harbor, and be made
welcome, as one of those who have ever had one foot loose from
this earth, longing for that place where your soul shall feast
and banquet forever and ever upon a glorious sight of the in-
comprehensible Trinity, and where ye shall see the fair face of
the Man, Christ, even the beautiful face, that was once, for your
cause, more marred than any of the visages of the sons of men,
(Isa. lii. 14,) and was all covered with spitting and blood. Be
content to wade through the waters betwixt you and glory with
him, holding his right hand fast ; for he knoweth all the fords.
Howbeit ye may be ducked, yet ye cannot drown, being in his
company ; and ye may, all the way to glory, see the way bedewed
with His blood, who is the Forerunner. Be not afraid, therefore,
when ye come even to the black and swelling river of death, to
put in your foot, and wade after hiin. The current, how strong
soever, cannot carry you down the water to Hell : the death and
resurrection of the Son of God are stepping-stones, and a stay to
you ; set down your feet by faith upon these stones, and go through
as on dry land. If ye knew wliat he is preparing for you, ye
would be too glad. He will not, (it may be,) give you a full
draught till ye come up to the well-head, and drink, yea, drink
abundantly, of the pure river of the water of life, " that proceedeth
out from the throne of God, and from the Lamb." (Rev. xxii. 1.)
Madam, tire not, weary not. I dare find you the Son of God
caution* that when ye are got up thither, and have casten^ your
eyes to view the golden city, and the fair and never withering
Tree of Life, which beareth twelve manner of fruits every month,
ye will then say, " Four-and-twenty hours' abode in that place is
worth threescore and ten years' sorrow upon earth." If ye can
but say that ye long earnestly to be carried up thither, (as I hope
ye cannot for shame deny him the honor of having wrought that
desire in your soul,) then hath your Lord given you an earnest :
and, madam, do ye believe that our Lord will lose his earnest, and
rue of the bargain, and change his mind, as if he were a man,
that can lie, or the son of man that can repent ? Nay, he is un-
changeable, and the same this year that he was the former year.
And his Son, Jesus, who upon earth ate and drank with publicans
and sinners, and spake and conferred with whores and harlots,
1 Surety. 2 Cast.
Rutherford's letters. 53
and put out his holy hand and touched the leper's filthy skin, and
came evermore nigh sinners, even now, in glory, is yet that same
Lord: his honor and liis great court' in Heaven have not made
him forget his poor friends on earth ; in him honors change not
manners, and he doth yet desire your company. Take him for
the old Christ, and claim still kindness to him, and say, "Oh, it
is so ! he is not changed, but I am changed :" nay, it is a part of
his unchangeable love, and an article of the New Covenant, to
keep you that ye cannot dispone" him nor sell him. He hath
not played fast and loose with us, in the Covenant of grace, so
that we may run from him at our pleasure. His love hath made
the bargain surer than so ; for Jesus, as the cautioner,^ is bound
for us, (Heb. vii. 22,) and it cannot stand with his honor to die in
the borrows,^ (as we use to say,) and lose thee, whom he must
render again to the Father, when he shall give up the kingdom
to him. Consent, and say "Amen" to the promises, and ye
have sealed that God is true, and Christ is yours. This is an
easy market : ye but look on with faith ; for Christ suffered all,
and paid all.
Madam, fearing lest I be tedious to your Ladyship, I must stop
here, desiring always to hear that your Ladyship is well, and that
ye have still your face up the mountain. Pray for us, madam,
and for Zion, whereof ye are a part. We expect a trial. God's
wheat in this land must go through Satan's sieve, but their faith
shall not fail. I am still wrestling in our Lord's work, and have
been tried and tempted by brethren, who look aAvry to the gospel.
Now He, that is able to keep you until that day, preserve your
soul, body and spirit, and present you before his face with his own
Bride, spotless and blameless.
Your Ladyship's,
To be commanded always in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, Nov. 2G, 1631.
LETTER XVL
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I am grieved exceedingly that your Ladyship should
think, or have cause to think, that such as love you in God, in
this country, are forgetful of you. For myself, madam, I owe to
your Ladyship all evidences of my high respect (in the sight of
my Lord, whose truth I preach, I am bold to say it,) for his rich
grace in you.
My communion, put off till the end of a longsome and rainy
harvest, and the presbyterial exercise (as the bearer can inform
your Ladyship) hindered me to see you. And for my people's
1 Favor, influence. * Dispose. 3 Surety.
* To die in the borrows, to fail wrhile the borrow, or pledge, or surety, for another.
54 Rutherford's letters.
sake (finding them like hot iron, that cooleth being out of the fire,
and that is phable to no work,) I do not stir abroad, neither have
I left them at all since your Ladyship was in the country, save at
one time only, about two years ago ; yet I dare not say but it is a
fault, howbeit no defect in my affection ; and I trust to make it
up again so soon as possibly I am able to wait upon you.
Madam, I have no new purpose to Avrite unto you, but of that
which I think, nay, which our Lord thinketh, needful, that one
thing, Mary's good part, which ye have chosen. (Luke x. 42.)
Madam, all that God hath, both himself and the creatures, he is
dealing and parting amongst the sons of Adam. There are none
so poor as that they can say in his face that he hath given them
nothing ; but there is no small odds betwixt the gifts given to
lawful bairns' and to bastards ; and the more greedy ye are in
suiting,'^ the more willing is he to give, delighting to be called
open-handed.
I hope that your Ladyship laboreth to get assurance of the
surest patrimony, even God himself. Ye will find in Christianity
that God aimeth, in all his dealings with his children, to bring
them to a high contempt of, and deadly feud with the world ; and
to set a high price upon Christ, and to think iiim one who cannot
be bought for gold, and well worthy the fighting for. And for no
other cause, madam, doth the Lord withdraw from you the child-
ish toys and the earthly delights that he giveth unto others, but
that he may have you wholly to himself. Think, therefore, of
the Lord, as of one who cometh to woo you in marriage, when ye
are in the furnace ; he seeketh his answer of you in affliction, to
see if ye will say, "Even so I take him." Madam, give him this
answer presently, and in your mind do not secretly grudge nor
murmur. When he is striking you in love, beware to strike
again ; that is dangerous, for those who strike again shall get the
last blow.
If I hit not upon the right string, it is because I am not ac-
quainted with your Ladyship's present condition ; but I believe
that your Ladyship goeth on foot laughing, and putting on a
good countenance before the world, and yet ye carry heaviness
about with you. Ye do well, madam, not to make them witnesses
of yovu" grief who cannot be carers of it ; but be exceedingly chari-
table of your dear Lord. As there be some friends worldly, of
whom ye will not entertain an ill thought, far more ought ye to
believe good evermore of your dear Friend, that lovely fair person,
Jesus Christ. The thorn is one of the most cursed, and angry,
and crabbed weeds that the earth yieldeth, and yet out of it
springeth the rose, one of the most sweetly smelled flowers, and
most delightful to the eye, that the earth hath. Your Lord will
make joy and gladness out of your afflictions ; for all his roses
have a fragrant smell. Wait for the time when his own holy
hand shall hold them to your nose ; and, if ye would have present
comfort under the cross, be much in prayer ; for at that time your
1 Children. s Urging a suit.
Rutherford's letters. 55
faith kisseth Christ, and he kisselh the soul — and oh ! if the
breath of his holy mouth be sweet! I dare be caution,' out of
some small experience, that ye shall not be beguiled; for the
world (yea not a few*^ number of God's children,) know not well
what that is which they call a godhead. But, madam, come near
to the Godhead, and look down to the bottom of the well: there
is much in him, and sweet were that death to drown in such a
well. Your grief taketh liberty to work upon your mind, when
ye are not busied in the meditation of the ever-delighting and all-
blessed Godhead. If ye would lay the price ye give out (which is
but some few years' pain and trouble,) beside the commodities ye
are to receive, ye would see that they were not worthy to be laid
in the balance together ; but it is nature that maketh you look to
what ye give out, and weakness of faith that hindereth you to
see what ye shall take in. Amend your hope, and frist^ your
faithful Lord awhile. He maketh himself your debtor in the New
Covenant: lie is honest — take his word. (Nahum i. 9,) "Afflic-
tion shall not spring up the second time." (Rev. xxi. 7,) " He
that overcometh shall inherit all things." Of all things, then,
which ye want in this life, madam, 1 am able to say nothing, if
that be not believed which ye have. (Rev. ii. 7, and Rev. iii. 5,)
" The overcomer shall be clothed in Avhite raiment," &c. ; and,
(ver. 21.) '- To the overcomer I will give to sit with me on my
throne, as I overcame and am set down with my Father in his
throne." Consider, madam, if ye are not high up now, and far
ben* in the palace of our Lord, when ye are upon a throne, in
white raiment, at lovely Christ's elbow. Oh, thrice fools are we,
who, like new-born princes weeping in the cradle, know not that
there is a kingdom before them! Then let our Lord's sweet hand
square us, and hammer us, and strike off the knots of pride, self-
love, and world-worship, and infidelity, that he may make us
stones and pillars in his Father's house. (Rev. iii. 12.) Madam,
what think ye to take binding with the fair Corner-stone, Jesus?
The Lord give you wisdom to believe and hope that your day is
coming. 1 hope to be a witness of your joy, as I have been a
hearer and beholder of your grief Think ye it much to follow
the Heir of the crown, who hath experience of sorrows, and was
acquainted with grief? (Isaiah liii.) It were pride to aim to be
above the King's Sou : it is more than we deserve that we are
equals in glory, in a manner.
Now, commending you to the dearest grace, and mercy of God,
I rest,
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 4, 1G42.
1 Surety, 2 Small. 3 Credit.
< Admitted to great familiarity.
56 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XVII.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Understanding-, a little after the writing of my last
letter, of the going- of this bearer, I would not omit the opportu-
nity of remembering your Ladyship, still harping upon that string
which, in our whole lifetime, is never too often touched upon, nor
is our lesson well enough learned, that there is a necessity of ad-
vancing in the way to the Kingdom of God, of the contempt of
the world, of denying ourself, and of bearing of our Lord's cross ;
which is no less needful for us than daily food. And among many
marks that we are on this journey, and under sail toward Heaven,
this is one, when the love of God so filleth our hearts that we for-
get to love and care too much for the having or wanting of other
things ; as one extreme heat burnetii out another. By this,
madam, ye know that ye have betrothed your soul in marriage to
Christ, when ye do make but small reckoning of all other suitors
or wooers, and when ye can, (having little in hand, but much in
hope) live as a young heir during the time of his non-age and
minority, being content to be as hardly handled, and under as
precise a reckoning as servants, because his hope is upon the in-
heritance. For this cause, God's bairns' take well with the spoil-
ing of their goods, (Heb. x. 34,) knowing in themselves that they
have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance. That day
that the earth and the works therein shall be burned with fire,
(2 Pet. iii. 10,) your hidden hope and your hidden life shall ap-
pear. And, therefore, since ye have not now many years of your
endless eternity, and know not how soon the sky above your head
shall rive, and the Son of Man be seen in the clouds of Heaven,
what better and wiser course can ye take than to think that your
one foot is here, and your other foot in the life to come, and to
leave off loving, desiring, or grieving for the wants that shall be
made up, when your Lord and ye shall meet, and when ye shall
give in your bill that day of all your wants here ? If your losses
be not made up, ye have place to challenge the Almighty; but it
shall not be so. Ye shall then rejoice with joy unspeakable and
full of glory, and your joy shall none take from you, (1 Pet. i. 8;
John xvi. 22.)
It is enough, that the Lord hath promised you great things ;
only let the time of bestowing them be in his own carving. It is
not for us to set an hour-glass to the Creator of time, since he and
we differ only in the term of payment. Since he hath promised
payment, and we believe it, it is no great matter, we will put that
in his own will ; as the frank buyer, who cometh near to what
the seller seeketh, useth at last to refer the difference to his will,
and so cutteth off the course of nuitual prigging.* Madam, do not
» Children. 2 Chafferinir.
Rutherford's letters. 57
prig' with your frank-hearted and gracious Lord about the time
of the fulfiUing of your joys. It shall be — God hath said it. Bide
his harvest, wait upon his whitsunday.^ His day is better than
your day. He putteth not the hooi^^ into the corn till it be ripe
and full-eared. The great Angel of the Covenant bear you com-
pany, till the trumpet shall sound and the voice of the Archangel
awaken the dead. Ye shall find it your only happiness, under
whatever thing disturbeth and crosseth the peace of your mind in
this life, to love nothing for itself, but only God for himself It is
the crooked love of some harlots, that they love bracelets, ear-
rinofs, and riagrs, better than the lover that sendeth them : but
God will not be so loved : for that were to behave as harlots, and
not as the chaste spouse, to abate from our love wdien these things
are pulled away. Our love to him should begin on earth, as it
shall be in Heaven. For, as the bride taketh not by a thousand
degrees so much delight in her wedding-garment as she doth in
her bridegroom, so we, in the life to come, howbeit clothed with
glory as with a robe, shall not be so much affected with the glory
that goeth about us as with the Bridegroom's joyful face and pres-
ence. Madam, if ye can win* to this here, the field is won ; and
your mind, for anything ye want, or for anything your Lord can
take from you, shall soon be calmed and quieted. Get himself as
a pawn, and keep him, till your dear Lord come and loose the
pawn, rue upon you, and give you all again that he took from
you, even a thousand talents for one penny. It is not ill to lend
God willingly, who otherwise both will and may take from you
against your will. It is good to play the usurer with him, and
take in, instead of ten of the hundred, an hundred of ten, often an
hundred of one.
Madam, fearing to be tedious to you, I break off here, commend-
ing you, as I trust to do while I live, your person, ways, burdens,
and all that concerneth you, to that Almighty, who is able to bear
you and your burdens. I still remember you to Him, who will
cause you one day to laugh. I expect that whatever ye can do
by word or deed, for the Lord's friendless Zion, ye will do it. She
is your Mother, forget her not, for the Lord intendeth to melt and
try this land ; and it is high time that we were all upon our feet,
and falling about ^ to try what claim we have to Christ. It is like
that the Bridegroom will be taken from us, and then we shall
mourn. Dear Jesus, remove not, else take us with thee !
Grace, grace be with you forever.
Your Ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 14, 1632.
I Higgle. 2 Termday. 3 Sickle, * Attain.
* Searching about.
I
58 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XVIII.
\ TO MY LADY K E N M U R E .
Madam, — Your Ladyship will not, I know, weary nor be of-
fended, though I trouble you with many letters: the memory of^
w^hat obligations I am under to your Ladyship is the cause of it,
I am possibly impertinent in what I write, because of my igno-
rance of your present estate ; but, for all that is said, I have
learned of Mr. William Dalgleish that ye have not changed upon,
nor wearied of your sweet Master, Christ, and his service ; neither
were it your part to change upon Him, who resteth in his love.
Ye are among honorable company, and such as affect grandeur
and court. But, madam, thinking upon your estate, I think that
I see an improvident wooer, coming too late to seek a bride, be-
cause she is contracted already, and promised away to another;
and so the wooer's busking' and bravery (who cometh to you as,
who but he !) is in vain. The outward pomp of this busy wooer,
a beguiling world, is now coming in to suit^ your soul too late,
when ye have promised away your soul to Christ many years ago.
And I know, madam, what answer ye may justly make to the
late suitor ; even this, " Ye are too long in coming. My soul, the
bride, is away already, and the contract with Christ subscribed;
and I cannot choose but I must be honest and faithful to him."
Honorable Lady, keep your first love, and hold the first match
with that soul-delighting, lovely Bridegroom, our sweet, sweet
. Lord, Jesus, fairer than all the children of men, the Rose of Sha-
ron, and the fairest and sweetest-smelled rose in all his Father's
garden. There is none like him. I would not exchange one
smile of his lovely face with kingdoms. Madam, let others take
their silly- feckless^ heaven in this hfe. Envy them not ; but let
your soul, like a tarrowing^ and mislearned^ child, take the dorts, '^
as we use to speak, or cast at^ all things, and disdain them, ex-
cept one only — either Christ or nothing. Your Well-beloved,
Jesus, will be content, that ye be here devoutly proud, and ill-* to
please, as one that contenmeth all husbands but himself. Either
the King's Son or no husband at all — -this is humble and worthy
ambition. What have ye to do to dally with a whorish and fool-
ish world ? Your jealous husband will not be content that ye
look by '" him to another : he will be jealous indeed, and offended,
if ye kiss another than himself.
What weights do burden you, madam, I know not, but think it
great mercy that your Lord from your youth hath been hedging-in
your out-straying affections, that they may not go a-whoring from
himself If ye were his bastard, he would not nurture you so : if
1 Decking. 2 Court. 3 Contemptible. * Poor, unreal.
5 To /arrow, to feel reluctance, especially to lake one's food, arisincr from some
pettisli humor. « Illbred. T Pe't. 8 Object to
9 Hard. 10 Past.
Rutherford's letters. 59
ye were for the slaughter, ye would be fattened ; but be content,
ye are his wheat growing in our Lord's field, (Matt. xiii. 25, 38.)
And if wheat, ye must go under our Lord's threshing instrument,
in his barn-tioor, and go through his sieve, (Amos ix. 9,) and
through his mill to be bruised, as the Prince of our salvation,
Jesus, was, (Isa. liii. 10,) that ye may be found good bread in your
Lord's house. Lord Jesus, bless the sjDiritual husbandry, and
separate you from the chaff that dow not bide* the wind. I am
persuaded that your glass is spending itself by little and little, and
that if 3'e knew who is before you, ye would rejoice in your tribu-
lation. Think ye it a small honor to stand beibre the throne of
God and the Lamb, and to be clothed in white, and to be called
to tlie marriage-supper of the Lamb, and to be led to the Fountain
of living waters, and to come to the well-head, even God himself,
and get your fill of the clear, cold, sweet, refreshing Water of life,
the King's own well, and to put up your own sinful hand to the
Tree of Life, and take down and eat the sweetest apple in all
God's heavenly paradise, Jesus Christ, your Life and your Lord?
Up your heart ! shout for joy ! your King is coming to fetch you
to his Father's house.
Madam, I am in exceeding great heaviness ; God thinking it
best for my own soul thus to exercise me, thereby, it may be, to
fit me to be his mouth to others ; I see and hear, at home and
abroad, nothing but matter of grief and discouragement, which
indeed maketh my life bitter — and I hope in God never to get my
will in this world. And I expect ere long a fiery trial upon the
Church ; for as many men almost in England and Scotland, as
many false friends to Christ, and as many pulling and drawing to
pull the crown off his holy head ; and for fear that our Beloved
stay amongst us, (as if his room were more desirable than himself,)
men are bidding him go seek his lodging. Madam, if ye have a
part in silly° friendless Zion, as I know ye have, speak a word on
her behalf to God and man. If ye can do nothing else, speak for
Jesus, and ye shall thereby be a witness against this declining age.
Now, from my very soul, laying and leavflig you on the Lord, and
desiring a part in your prayers, (as my Lord knoweth tiiat I re-
member you,) I deliver over your body, spirit, and all your neces-
sities, to the hands of our Lord, and remain forever,
Your Ladyship's, in your sweet Lord Jesus, and mine, S. R.
Anwoth, Feb. 13, 1632.
LETTER XIX.
for MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Beloved Mistress, — My dearest love in Christ remembered
to you — know that Mr. Abraham showed me that there is to be a
* la not able to stand. * Poor, in the sense of exciting compassion.
60 Rutherford's letters.
meeting of the Bishops at Edinburgh shortly. The causes are
known to themselves ; it is our part to hold up our hands for Zion.
Howbeit it is reported that they came sad from court. It is our
Lord's wisdom that his Kirk should ever hing' by a thread ; and
yet the thread breaketh not, being hung upon Him, who is the
sure Nail in David's house, (Isaiah xxii. ver. 23,) upon whom all
the vessels, great and small, do hang : and the Nail (God be
thanked) neither crooketh, nor can be broken. Jesus, that Flower
of Jesse, set without hands, getteth many a blast, and yet wither-
eth not, because he is his Father's noble Rose, casting a sweet
smell through Heaven and earth, and must grow ; and in the
same garden with him grow the saints, God's fair and beautiful
lilies, vmder wind and rain, and all sun-burned, and yet life re-
maineth at the root. Keep within his garden, and ye shall grow
with them, till the great Husbandman, our dear Master-gardener,
come, and transplant you from the lower part of his vineyard up
to the higher, to the very heart of his garden, above the wrongs
of the rain, sun, or wind ; and then wait upon the times of the blow-
ing of the sweet south and north wind of his gracious Spirit, that
may make you cast a sweet smell in your Beloved's nostrils ; and
bid your Beloved come down to his garden, and eat of his pleasant
fruits. (Cant. iv. ver. 16.) And he will come. Ye will get no
more than this, until ye come up to the Well-head, where he shall
put up your hand, and take down the apples of the Tree of Life,
and eat luider the shadow of that Tree — these apples are sweeter
up beside the Tree, than they are down here, in this piece of a
clay prison-liouse. I have no joy but in the thoughts of these
times. Doubt not of your Lord's part, and the Spouse's part — she
shall be in good case. That word shall stand, (Hosea xiv. 5,) "I
will be as tlie dew to Israel, he shall grow up as the lily ; and cast
out his roots as Lebanon." (Ver. 6,) "His branches shall spread,
his beaut}'" shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon."
(Isaiah xi. ver. 12,) Christ shall set up his colors, and his ensign
for the nations, and shall gather together the outcasts of Israel.
(Ezek. xxxvii. 11,) "Then the Lord said to me. Son of man, these
dead bones are the whole House of Israel; behold, they say. Our
bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts." (Ver.
12,) " Therefore prophesy unto them, and say. Thus saith the
Lord God, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and
cause you come up out of your graves, and bring you unto the
land of Israel." These promises are not wind, but the breast of
our Beloved, Christ, which we nuist suck, and draw comfort out of.
We have cause to pity those poor creatures, that stand out
against Christ, and the building of his house. Silly men, they
have but a feckless" and silly' heaven, nothing but meat and
clothes ; and they laugh a day or two in the world, and then in a
moment go down to the grave. And they shall not be able to
1 Hang. 2 Unsubstantial ' Despicable.
Rutherford's letters. 61
hinder Christ's building ; he that is Master of the work, will
lead stones ' to tlie wall over their belly.
And for that present tumult, that the children of this world
raise anent" the planting of your town with a pastor, believe and
stay upon God (as ye still shame us all in believing;) go forward
in the strength of the Lord, and from my Lord I say, before
whom I stand, have your eyes upon none but the Lord of armies;
and the Lord will either let ye see what ye long to see, or then
fulfil your joy more abundantly another way. Ye and yours,
and the children of God whom ye care for, in that town, shall
have as much of the Son of God's supper, cut and laid down upon
your trenchers, be he who he will that carveth, as shall feed you
to eternal life. And be not cast down for all that is done, your
reward is laid up with God. I hope to see ye laugh and leap
for joy. Will the temple be built without din and tumult? No !
God's stones of his house in Germany are laid with blood ; and
the Son of God no sooner beginneth to chop and hew stones with
his hammer, but as soon the sword is drawn. If the work were
of men, the world would set their shoulders to yours; but in
Christ's work, two or three must fight against a presbytery,
(though his own court,) and a city. This proveth that it is
Christ's errand, and, therefore, that it shall thrive. Let them lay
iron chains cross over the door, — stay, and believe, and wait, whill*
the Lion of the tribe of Judah come. And He, that cometh from
Heaven clothed with the rainbow, and hath the little book in his
hand, when he taketh a grip* of their chains, will lay the door
upon the broad-side,* and come in, and go up to the pulpit, and
take the man with him whom he hath chosen for his work. There-
fore, let me hear from you, whether you be in heaviness, or re-
joicing under hope, that I may take part of your grief, and bear
it with you, and get part of your joy, which is to me also as my
own joy.
And as to what are your fears anent ^ the health or life of your
dear children, lay it upon Christ's shoulders ; let him bear all.
Loose your grips* of them all ; and, when your dear Lord pulleth,
let them go with faith and joy ; it is a tried faith, to kiss a Lord
that is taking from you. Let them be careful, during the short
time that they are here, to run, and get a grip' of the prize. Christ
is standing in the end of their way, holding up the garland of end-
less glory to their eyes, and is crying, " Run fast, and come, and
receive :" happy are they, if their breath serve them to run, and
not to weary, vvhilP their Lord, with his own dear hand, put the
crown upon their head. It is not long days, but good days, that
make the life glorious and happy ; and our dear Lord is gracious
to us, who shorteneth, and hath made the way to glory shorter
than it was : so that the crown that Noah did fight for five hun-
dred years, children may now obtain in fifteen years. And Heaven
is in some sort better for us now than it was to Noah : for the
1 To had stones, to cany stones in a cart from one place to another.
« Concerning. 3 Till. * Gripe, hold. 5 Flat on the side.
62 Rutherford's letters.
Man, Christ, is there now, who was not come in the flesh in
Noah's days.
You will show this to your children, whom my soul in Christ
blesseth ; and entreat them, by the mercies of God, and the bowels
of Jesus Christ, to covenant with Jesus Christ to be his, and to
make up the bond of friendship betwixt their souls and their Christ,
that they may have acquaintance in Heaven, and a friend at God's
right hand — such a friend at court is much worth.
Now I take my leave of you, praying my Christ, and your
Christ, to fulfil our joy, and moe graces and blessings from our
sweet Lord Jesus to your soul, your husband's, and children, than
ever I wrote of letters of A, B, C, to you.
Grace, grace, be with you.
Yours, in my sweet Master, Jesus Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, March 9, 1632.
LETTER XX.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Dearly beloved Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered
— Ye are not ignorant what our Lord, in his love-visitation, hath
been doing with your soul, even letting you see a little sight of
that dark trance which ye must go through ere you come to glory.
Your life hath been near the grave, and ye were at the door, and
ye found the door shut fast ; your dear Christ thinking it not time
to open these gates to you, whill ' ye have fought some longer in
his camp. And, therefore, he willeth you to put on your armor
again, and to take no truce with the Devil, or this present world.
Y^e are little obliged to any of the two : but I rejoice in this, that
when any of the two cometh to suit^ your soul in marriage, ye
have an answer in readiness to tell them — "Ye are too long
a-comitig : I have many a year since promised my soul to another,
even to my dearest Lord Jesus, to whom I must be true." And,
therefore, ye are come back to us again, to help us to pray for
Christ's fair Bride— a marrow^ dear to him.
Be not cast down in heart, to hear that the world barketh at
Christ's strangers, both in Ireland and in this land. They do it
because their Lord hath chosen them out of this world; and this
is one of our Lord's reproaches, to be hated and ill-entreated by
men: the silly* stranger in an unco^ country, must take with
smoky inn, and coarse cheer, and a hard bed, and a barking ill-
tongued host. It is not long to-day, and he will to his journey
upon the morrow, and leave them all. Indeed our fair morning
is at hand, the day-star is near the rising, and we are not many
miles from home ; what matter of ill entertainment in the smoky
1 Till. 2 Court. 3 Partner. * Poor. s Strange.
Rutherford's letters. 63
inn of this miserable life ? We are not to stay here, and we shall
be dearly welcome to Him whom we go to. And I hope, that
when I shall see you clothed in white raiment, washen ' in the
blood of the Lamb, and shall see you even at the elbow of your
dearest Lord and Redeemer, and a crown upon your head, and
following our Lamb, and lovely Lord whithersoever he goeth, ye
will think nothing of all these days, and ye will then rejoice, and
no man shall take your joy from you. And it is certain there is
not much sand to run in your Lord's sand-glass, and that day is
at hand, and, till then, your Lord in this life is giving you some
little feasts. It is true that ye see him not now, as ye shall see
him then. Your Well-beloved standeth now behind the wall,
looking out at the window, (Cant. ii. 9,) and ye see but a little of
his face; then ye shall see all his face, and all the Saviour, — a.
long, and high, and broad Lord Jesus, the most lovely person
among the ciiildren of men. O joy of joys ! that our souls know
there is such a great supper preparing for us ; even howbeit we be
but half-hungered' of Christ here, and many a time dine behind
noon,' yet the supper of the Lamb shall come in Xime, and will be
set before us, before we famish, and lose our stomachs. Ye have
cause to hold up your heart in remembrance, and hope of that fair,
long, summer-day; for in this night of your life, wherein ye are
in the body, absent from the Lord, Christ's fair moon-light, in his
word and sacraments, in prayer, feeling, and holy conference,
hath shined upon you, to let you see the way to the city.
I confess that our diet here is but sparing ; we get but tastings
of our Lord's comforts ; but the cause of that is not because our
Steward, Jesus, is a niggard, and narrow-hearted, but because our
stomachs are weak, and we are narrow-hearted : but the great
feast is coming, when our hearts shall be enlarged, and the cham-
bers of them made fair and wide, to take in the great Lord Jesus
— come in, then. Lord Jesus, to hungry souls, gaping for thee !
In this journey take the Bridegroom, as ye may have him, and be
greedy of his smallest crumbs : but, dear mistress, buy none of
Christ's delicates spiritual with sin, or fasting against your weak
body. Remember that ye are in the bod}^, and it is the lodging-
house, and ye may not, without offending the Lord, suffer the old
walls of that house to fall down, through want of necessary food.
Your body is the dwelling-house of the Spirit ; and. therefore, for
the love ye carry to the sweet Guest, give a due regard to his
house of clay. When he looseth the wall, why not? welcome,
Lord Jesus ! but it is a fearful sin in us, by hurting the body by
fasting, to loose one stone, or the least piece of timber in it ; for
the house is not our own, the Bridegroom is with you yet ; so fast,
as that, also, ye may feast and rejoice in him.
I think upon your magistrates ; but He, that is clothed in linen,
and hath the writer's in.k-horn by his side, hath written up their
names in Heaven already— pray, and be content with his will.
1 Washed. 2 Half- fed.
3 Dinner, in the days of Rutherford, was never later than noon.
64 Rutherford's letters.
God hath a council-house in Heaven, and the end will be mercy
unto you. For the planting of your town with a godly minister,
have your eye upon the Lord of the harvest. I dare promise you
that God, in this life, will fill your soul with the fatness of his
house, for your care to see Christ's bairns fed ; and your posterity
shall know it, to whom I pray for mercy, and that they may get
a name among the living in Jerusalem ; and if God portion them
with his bairns, their rent is fair, and I hope it shall be so.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, ever in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Sept. 19, 1632.
LETTER XXL
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister in Christ, — Ye shall understand
that I have received a letter from Edinburgh, that it is suspected
that there will be a General Assembly, or then '■ some meeting of
the Bishops ; and that at this Synod there will be some commis-
sioners chosen by the Bishop ; which news have so taken up my
mind, that I am not so settled for studies as I have been before ;
and, therefore, was never in such fear for the work. But, because
it is written to me as a secret, I dare not reveal it to any, but to
yourself whom I know : and, therefore, I entreat you, not for any
comfort of mine, who am but one man, but for the glory and
honor of Jesus Christ, the Master of the banquet, be more earnest
with God, and, in general, show others of your Christian acquaint-
ance my fears for myself. I can be content of shame in that work,
if my Lord and Master be honored : and, therefore, petition our
Lord, especially to see to his own glory, and to give bread to his
hungry bairns, howbeit I go hungry away from the feast.
Request Mr. Robert from me, if he come not, to remember us to
our Lord.
I have neither time, nor a free disposed mind, to write to you
anent''^ your own case. Send me word if all your children and
your husband be well. Seeing they are not yours, but your dear
Lord's, esteem them but as borrowed, and lay them down at God's
feet — your Christ to you is better than they all.
You will pardon my unaccustomed short letter ; and remember
me, and that honorable feast, to our Lord Jesus. He was with us
before : I hope he will not change upon us, but I fear that I have
changed upon him — but, Lord ! let old kindness stand.
Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
I Otherwise. * Concerning.
Rutherford's letters. 65
LETTER XXIT.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved, and Dear Sister, — My tender affection in
Christ remembered — I left you in as great heaviness as I was in
since I came to tliis country ; but I know that ye doubt not that
(as the truth in Christ is) my soul is knit to your soul, and to the
souls of all yours, and would, if I could, send you the largest part
of my heart inclosed in this letter. But by fervent calling upon
my Lord, I have attained some victory over my heart, which run-
neth often not knowing whither, and of my beguiling hopes, which
I know now better than I did. And I trust in my Lord to hold
aloof from the enticings of a seducing heart, by which I am daily
cozened ; and I mind not, by His grace, who hath called me ac-
cording to his eternal purpose, to come so far within the grips ' of
my foolish mind, gripping about ^ any folly coming its way, as the
woodbine or ivy goeth about the tree.
I adore and kiss the providence of my Lord, who knoweth well
what is most expedient for me, and for you, and your children:
and I think of you, as of myself, that the Lord, who turneth about,
in his deep wisdom, all the v*'heels and turnings of such changes,
will also dispose of that for tlie best to you and yours. In the pres-
ence of my Lord, I am not able, howbeit I would, to conceive
amiss of you in that matter. Grace, grace forever upon you and
your seed ; and it shall be your portion, in despite of all the powers
of darkness: do not make more cpiestion of this. But the Lord
saw a nail in my heart loose, and he hath now fastened it — honor
be to his Majesty.
I hear that your son is entered to the school. If I had known
of the day, I would have begged from our Lord, that he would
have put the book in his hand, with his own hand. I trust in
my Lord it is so, and I conceive a hope to see him a star to
give light in some room of our Lord's house ; and purpose, by
the Lord's grace, as I am able, (if our Lord call you to rest be-
fore me,) when you are at your home, to do the uttermost of my
power to help him every way, in grace and learning, and his
brother, and all your children— and I hope that ye would expect
that of me.
Further, ye shall know that Mr. William Dalgleish is come
home ; who saith it is a miracle that your husband, in this pro-
cess before the Council, escaped both discredit and damage. Let
it not be forgotten that he was, in our apprehension, to our grief,
cast down and humbled in the Lord's work, in that matter betwixt
him and the baillie;^ now the Lord hath Jionored him, and made
him famous for virtue, honesty, and integrity, two several times,
• Grasp. 2 Clasping about.
' A magistrate in a Scottish borough, similar to an alderman in England.
5
66 Rutherford's letters.
before the nobles of this kingdom. Your Lord hveth ; we will
go to his throne of grace again ; his arm is not shortened.
The King is certainly expected. Ill is feared. We have cause,
for our sins, to fear that the Bridegroom shall be taken from us ;
by our sins, we have rent his fair garments, and we have stirred
up and awakened our Beloved. Pray him to tarry, or then' to take
us with him. It were good that we should knock and rap at the
Lord's door : we may not tire to knock oftener than twice or thrice
— he knoweth the knock of his friends.
I am still what I was ever to your dear children, tendering
their souls' happiness, and praying that grace, grace, grace, mercy
and peace from God, even God our Father, and our Lord Jesus,
may be their portion ; and that now, while they are green and
young, their hearts may take band'^ with Jesus, the Corner-stone,
and win^ once in, into our Lord and Saviour's house, and then
they will not get leave to flit.
Pray for me, and especially for humility and thankfulness. I
have always remembrance of you and your husband, and dear
children. The Lord, Jesus, be with your spirit.
Yours evermore, in my dear Lord Jesus, and yours, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXIII.
TO MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved, and Dear Sister, — My love in Christ re-
membered— God hath brought me home from a place, where I
have been exercised with great heaviness ; and I have found at
home a new matter of heaviness, yet dare not but in all things
give thanks.
In my business in Edinburgh, I have not sinned, nor wronged
my party, by his own confession, and by the confession of his
friends. I have given of my goods for peace, and the saving of
my Lord's truth from reproaches, which is dearer to me than all I
have. My mother is weak, and I think shall leave me alone ; but
I am not alone, because Christ's Father is with me.
For your business anent^ your town, I see great evidences ; but
Satan and his instruments are against it, and few set their should-
ers to Christ's shoulder to help him. But he will do all his lone ;"
and I dare not but exhort you to believe, and persuade you, that
the hungry in your city shall be fed; and as for the rest, that
want a stomach, the parings of God's loaf will suffice them — and,
therefore, believe it shall be well. I may not leave iriy mother
to come and confer with you of all particulars : I have given such
' OQierwise.
2 To take band, to unite. Liine is said to take band with the stones in a building
when it unites with them.
J Get. < Concerning. s By himself alone.
Rutherford's letters. 67
directions to our dear friend as I can, but the event is in our
Lord's hand.
God's Zion abroad flourisheth ; and his arm is not shortened
with us, if we could beheve. There is a scarcity and famine of
the word of God, in Edinburgh.
Your sister Jean laboreth mightily in our business ; but hath
not as yet gotten an answer from J. P. Mr. A. C. will work what
he can. My Lady saith she can do little, and that it suiteth not
her nor her husband well to speak in such an affair. I told her
my mind plainly.
I long to know of your estate. Remember me heartily to your
dear husband : grace be the portion of your bairns. I know that
you are mindful of the green wound of our sister kirk in Ireland.
Bid our Lord lay a plaister to it ; he hath good skill to do so, and
set others to work.
Grace, grace, upon your soul and body, and all yours.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXIV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE,
Madam, — The cause of my not writing to your Ladyship, is
not my forgetfulness of )^ou, but the want of the opportunity of a
convenient bearer; for I am under more than a simple obligation
to be kind (on paper at least) to your Ladyship.
I bless our Lord, through Christ, who halh brought you home
again to your country, from that place, where ye have seen with
your eyes that which our Lord's truth taught you before, to wit,
that worldly glory is nothing but a vapor, a shadow, the foam of
the water, or something less and lighter, — even nothing ; and that
our Lord hath not without cause said in his word, (I Cor. vii. 31,)
"The countenance or fashion of this world passeth away." In
which place our Lord compareth it to an image in a looking-glass,
for it is the looking-glass of Adam's sons. Some come to the glass,
and see in it the pictme of honor, and but a picture indeed, for
true honor is to be great in the sight of God ; and others see in it
the shadow of riches, and but a shadow indeed, for durable riches
stand, as one of the maids of Wisdom, upon her left hand, (Prov.
iii. 16 ;) and a third sort see in it the face of painted pleasures, and
the beholders will not believe, but the image which they see in
this glass is a living man, till the Lord come and break tlie glass
in pieces, and remove the face ; and then, like Pharaoh awakened,
they say, "And, behold, it was a dream."
I know that your Ladyship thinketh yourself little in the com-
mon of this world, for the favorable aspect of any of these three
* Under obligation to.
68 Rutherford's letters.
painted faces ; and blessed be our Lord that it is so ; the better
for you, madam; they are not worthy to be wooers to suit' in
marriage your soul, — that looketh to an higher match than to be
married upon painted clay. Know, therefore, madam, that the
place whither our Lord Jesus cometh to woo a bride, it is even in
the furnace: for if ye be one of Zion's daughters, (which I ever
put beyond all question, since I first had occasion to see in your
Ladyship such pregnant evidences of the grace of God,) the Lord,
who hath his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, (Isa. xxxi.
9,) is purifving you in the furnace. And, therefore, be content to
live in it ; and every day to be adding and sewing a passment^ to
your wedding garment, that ye may be at last decored- and trim-
med as a bride for Christ, a bride of his own busking,^ beautified
in the hidden man of the heart, forgetting your father's house, so
shall the King greatly desire your beauty, (Psalm xlv. IL)
If your Ladyship be not changed, as I hope that ye are not, I
believe that ye esteem yourself to be of those whom God hath
tried these many years, and refined as silver. But, madam, I
shall show your Ladyship a privilege that others want, and which
ye have, in this case. Such as are in prosperity, and are fatted
with earthly joys, and increased with children and friends, though
the word of God is, indeed, written to such, for their instruction;
yet to you, who are in trouble, (spare me, madam, to say this,)
from whom the Lord hath taken many children, and whom he
hath exercised otherwise, there are some chapters, some particular
promises in the word of God, made in a most especial manner,
which should never have been yours, so as they now are, if ye
had had your portion in this life as others have: and, therefore,
all the comforts, promises, and mercies, which God oifereth to the
afllicted, are as so many love-letters written to you : take them to
you, madam, and claim your right, and be not robbed. It is no
small comfort, that God hath written some scriptures to you which
he hath not written to others ; ye seem rather, in this, to be envied
than pitied ; and ye are, indeed, in this, like people of another
world, and those that are above the ordinary rank of inankind,
whom our King and Lord, our Bridegroom, Jesus, in his love-let-
ter to his well-beloved Spouse, hath named, beside all the rest, and
hath written comforts and his hearty commendations, in the Ivi.
of Isa., ver. 4, 5, and Ps. cxlvii. 2, 3, to you. Read these, and the
like, and think that your God is like a friend, who sendeth a letter
to a whole house and family, but speaketh in his letter to some,
by name, that are dearest to him in the house^ye are then,
madam, of the dearest friends of the Bridegroom. If it were law-
ful, I would envy you, tliat God honored you so above many of
his dear children. Therefore, madam, your part is, in this case,
(seeing God taketh nothing from you but that which he is to sup-
ply with his own presence,) to desire your Lord to know his own
1 To urge a suit.
2 An ornament. Passments are strips of lace sewed upon clothes.
3 Decorated. ♦ Decking.
Rutherford's letters. 69
room, and to take it even upon biin to come in, in the room of
dead children. "Jehovah, know thy own place, and take it to
thee !" is all ye have to say.
Madam, I persuade myself, that this world is to you an unco'
inn: and that ye are like a traveller, who hath his bundle upon
his back, and his staff in his hand, and his feet upon the door-
threshold. Go forward, honorable and elect Lady, in the strength
of your Lord, (let the world bide at home and keep the house,)
with your face toward him, who longeth more for a sight of you
than ye can do for him. Ere it be long he will see us. I hope to
see you laugh as cheerfully after noon, "as ye have mourned before
noon. The hand of the Lord, the hand of the Lord, be with you
in your journey ! What have ye to do here 7 this is not your
mountain of rest. Arise then, and set your foot up the mountain ;
go up out of the wilderness leaning upon the shoulder of your Be-
loved, (Cant. viii. 5.) If ye knew the welcome that abideth you
when ye come home, ye would hasten your pace ; for ye shall see
your Lord put up his own holy hand to your face, and wipe all
tears from your eyes ; and I trov/ tliat then ye shall have some
joy of heart.
Madam, paper willeth me to end, before affection. Remember
the estate of Zion. Pray that Jerusalem may be, as Zechariah
prophesied, (chap. xii. 3.) a burdensome stone for all ; that who-
soever boweth down to roll the stone out of the way, may hurt
and break the joints of their back, and strain'^ their arms, and dis-
joint their shoulder-blades : and pray Jehovah, that the stone may
lie still in its own place, and keep band' with the Corner-stone.
I hope it will be so ; He is a skilled master-builder who laid it. I
should, madam, under great heaviness, be refreshed with two lines
from your Ladyship, which I refer to your own wisdom.
Madam, I should seem undutiful not to show you, that great
solicitation is made by the town of Kirkcudbright to have the use
of my poor labors amongst them. If the Lord will call, and his
people cry, who am I to resist? But, without his seen calling,
and till the flock, whom I now oversee, be planted with one to
whom I dare intrust Christ's Spouse, gold nor silver, nor favor of
men, I hope, shall loose me.
I leave your Ladyship, praying more earnestly for grace and
mercy to be with you, and multiplied upon you, here and here-
after, than my pen can express.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in the Lord, S. R.
Kirkcudbright.
1 Strange. 2 Sprain. 3 Continue united.
70 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XXV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Having saluted you with grace and mercy from
God, our Father, and from our Lord, Jesus Christ — I long both to
see your Ladysliip, and to hear how it goeth with you.
I do remember you, and present you and your necessities to
Him, who is able to keep you, and to present you blameless before
his face with joy : and my prayer to our Lord is, that ye may be
sick of love for Him, who died of love for you, I mean your Sa-
viour, Jesus: — And, oh! sweet were that sickness, to be soul-sick
for him ! and a living death it were to die in the fire of the love of
that Soul-lover, Jesus ! And, madam, if ye love him, ye will keep
his commandments ; and this is not one of the least, to lay your
neck cheerfully and willingly under the yoke of Jesus Christ : for
I trust that your Ladyship did first contract and bargain with the
Son of God, to follow him upon these terms, that by his grace ye
should endure hardship, and suffer afiliction as the soldier of
Christ. They are not worthy of Jesus, who will not take a blow
for their Master's sake. As for our glorious Peace-maker, when
he came to make up the friendship betwixt God and us, God
bruised him, and struck him, the sinful world, also, did beat him,
and crucify him ; yet he took buffets of both the parties : and —
honor to our Lord, Jesus! — he would not leave the field for all
that, till he had made peace betwixt the parties. I persuade my-
self that your sufferings are but like your Saviour's, (yea, incom-
parably less and lighter,) which are called but a bruising of his
heel, (Gen. iii. L5,) a v/ound far from the heart. Your life is hid
with Christ, in God, (Col. iii. 3,) and, therefore, ye cannot be rob-
bed of it. Our Lord handleth us as fathers do their young chil-
dren. They lay up jewels in a place above the reach of the short
arms of bairns, else bairns would put up their hands, and take
them down, and lose them soon. So hath our Lord done with our
spiritual life. Jesus Christ is the high coffer, in the which our
Lord hath hid our life ; we, children, are not able to reach up our
arm so high as to take down that life and lose it; it is in our
Christ's hand. Oh long, long may Jesus be lord-keeper of our
life ! and happy are they that can, with the Apostle, (2 Tim. i.)
lay their soul in pawn in the hand of Jesus ; for he is able to keep
that which is committed in pawn to him against that day. Then,
madam, so long as this life is not hurt, all other troubles are but
touches in the heel. I trust that ye shall soon be cured.
Ye know, madam, that kings have some servants in their courts
who receive not present wages in their hand, but live upon their
hopes : the King of kings, also, hath servants in liis court, that,
for the present, get little or nothing, but the heavy cross of Christ,
troubles without, and terrors within ; but they live upon hope, and
Rutherford's letters. 71
when it cometh to the parting of the inheritance, they remain in
the house as heirs : it is better to be so than to get present pay-
ment, and a portion in this hfe, an inheritance in this world, (God
forgive me, that I should honor it with the name of an inheri-
tance, it is rather a farm-room,') and then in the end to be casten*
out of God's house, with this word, " Ye have received your con-
solation, ye shall get no more." Alas ! what get they? The rich
glutton's heaven. Oh, but our Lord, (Luke xvi.) maketh it a silly'
heaven ! He fared well, (saith our Lord.) and delicately every
day. Oh, no more? a silly heaven ! Truly no more, except that
he was clothed in purple, and that is all. I persuade myself, ma-
dam, that ye have joy when ye think that our Lord hath dealt
more graciously with your soul. Ye have gotten little in this life,
it is true, indeed : ye have, then, the more to crave ; yea, ye have
all to crave ; for, except some tastings of the first fruits, and some
kisses of His mouth, whom your soul lovetb, ye get no more. But
I cannot tell you what is to come ; yet I may speak as our Lord
doth of it. The foundation of the City is pure gold, clear as crys-
tal : the twelve ports are set with precious stones : if orchards and
rivers commend a soil upon earth, there is a paradise there,
wherein groweth the Tree of Life that beareth twelve manner of
fruits every month, which is seven-score and four harvests in the
year : and there is there a pure river of water of life, proceeding
out of the throne of God and of the Lamb : and the city hath no
need of the light of the sun, or inoon, or of a candle ; for tire Lord
God Almighty and the Lamb are the light thereof. Madam, be-
lieve and hope for this, till ye see and enjoy. Jesus is saying in
the Gospel, " Come and see ; and he is come down in the chariot
of truth, wherein he rideth through the world, to conquer men's
souls, (Ps. xlv. 4,) and is now in the world, saying, "Who will go
with me? Will ye go? My Father will make you welcome, and
give you house-room ; for in my Father's house are many dwell-
ing-places." Madam, consent to go with him.
Thus I rest, commending you to God's dearest mercy.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXVL
TO MY LADY KEN MURE.
Madam, — I am afraid now, (as many others are,) that at the
sitting down of our Parliament, the Spouse of our Lord Jesus shall
be roughly handled; and it iiuist be so. since false and declining
Scotland, whom our Lord took off the dunghill, and out of hell,
and made a fair bride to himself, hath broken her faith to her
sweet Husband, and hath put on the forehead of a whore ; and,
1 A rented room. 2 Cast. 3 Poor, contemptible.
72 Rutherford's letters.
therefore, he saith that he will remove. Would to God, we could stir
up ourselves to lay hold upon Him, who, bein<j highly provoked with
the haiidling he hath met with, is ready to depart ! Alas, we do
not importune him, by prayer and supplication, to abide amongst
us ! If we could but weep upon him, and, in the holy pertinacy '
of faith, wrestle with him, and say, "We wnll not let thee go;" it
might be (hat then He, who is easy to be entreated, would )'et,
notwithstanding our high provocations, condescend to stay, and
feed among the lilies, till that feir and desirable day break, and
the shadows flee away. Ah ! what cause of mourning is there,
when our gold is become dim, and the visage of our Nazarites,
sometimes 2 whiter than snow, is become blacker than a coal ; and
Levi's house, once comparable to fine gold, is now changed, and
become like vessels in wdiich he hath no pleasure ! Madam, think
upon this, that when our Lord, who hath his handkerchief to
wipe the face of the mourners in Zion, shall come to wipe away
all tears from their eyes, he may wipe yours also, in passing,
amongst others. I am confident, madam, that our Lord will yet
build a new house to himself of our rejected and scattered stones ;
for our Bridegroom cannot want a wife. Can he live a widower?
Nay he will embrace both us, the Little young Sister, and the
Elder Sister, the Church of the Jews; and there will yet be a day
of it : and, therefore, we have cause to rejoice, yea, to sing and
shout for joy. The Church hath been, since the world began,
ever hanging by a small thread, and all the hands of Hell and of
the wicked have been drawing at the thread ; but, God be thanked,
they only break their arms by pulling, but the thread is not broken,
for the sweet fingers of Christ our Lord have spun and twisted it.
— Lord, hold the thread whole !
Madam, stir up your husband, to lay hold upon the covenant,
and to do good. What hath he to do with the world ? It is not
his inheritance : desire him to make home-over,^ and put-to his
hand to lay one stone or two upon the wall of God's house, before
he go hence. I have heard also, madam, that your child is re-
moved ; but to have or want is best, as He pleaseth. Whether
she be with you, or in God's keeping, think it all one ; nay, think
it the better of the two by far, that she is with him. I trust in
our Lord, that there is something laid up and kept for you ; for
our kind Lord, who hath wounded you, will not be so ciiiel, as
not to allay the pain of your green wound; and, therefore, claim
Christ still as your own, and own him as your One thing.
So resting, I commend your Ladyship, your soul and spirit, in
pawn to Him, who keepeth his Father's pawns, and will make an
account of them faithfully, even to that Fairest amongst the sons
of men, otn- sweet Lord, Jesus, the fairest, the sweetest, the most
delicious Rose in all his Father's great field. The smell of that
Rose perfume your soul !
Your Ladyship's, in his sweetest Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 1, 1G33.
' Pertinacity. 2 Formerly. 3 Homewards.
Rutherford's letters. 73
LETTER XXVII.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Dear Sister, — I longed much to have conferred with you at
this time. I am grieved at anything in your house that grievetli
you, and shall, by my Lord's grace, suit^ my Lord to help you to
bear your burden, and to come in behind you, and give you and
your burdens a putt- up the mountain. Know you not that Christ
wooeth his wife in the furnace, (Isa. xlviii. 10,) "Behold, I have
refined thee, but not with silver ; I have chosen thee in the fur-
nace of aliliction. He casteth his love on you when ye are in the
furnace of affliction : ye might, indeed, be casten down, if he
brought you in and left you there ; but when he leadeth you
through the waters, think ye not that he has a sweet soft hand?
You know his love grip ^ already : you shall be delivered; wait
on : Jesus will make a road, and come and fetch home the cap-
tive : ye shall not die in prison, but your strokes are such as were
your Husband's, who was wounded in the house of his friends —
strokes were not ne wings ^ to him, and neither are they to you.
But your winter-night is near spent; it is near-hand^ the dawn-
ing. I shall see you leap for joy. The Kirk shall be delivered;
this wilderness shall bud and grow up like a rose ; Christ got a
charter of Scotland from his Father, and who will bereave him of
his heritage, or put our Redeemer out of his mailing,^ until his
tack'' be run out?
I must have j^ou praying for me; I am black-shamed ^ for ever-
more with Christ's goodness; and in private, on the 17th and 18th
of August, I got a full answer of my Lord, to be a graced minister,
and a chosen arrow hidden in his own quiver. But know that
this assurance is not kept but by watching and prayer ; and,
therefore, dear mistress, help me. I have gotten now — honor to
my Lord ! — the gate^ to open the slot,'" and shute'* the bar of his
door ; and I think it easy to get anything from the King by
prayer, and to use holy violence with him. Christ was in Carsp-
hairn Kirk, and opened the people's hearts wonderfully : .Tesus is
looking up that water, '"^ and minting '^ to dwell amongst them. I
would that we could give him his welcome-home to the Muirs.'*
Now peace and grace be upon you, and all yours.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, August 20, 1G33.
I Ur<Te. 2 A strong push. 3 Grasp.
■• Novelties. ^ Near. ^ Farm.
T Lease. ^ Utterly ashamed. 9 Way.
•0 A bar running from one siJe of a door to the other, and let, at both ends, into
the wall. '' Push aside. '2 River.
13 Intimating by signs, an intention. i^ A district of healthy uplands.
74 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XXVIII.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I determined, and was desirous, also, to have seen
your Ladyship, but, because of a pain in my arm, I could not. I J
know that ye will not impute it to any unsuitable forgetfulness of
your Ladyship, from whom, at my first entry to my calling in this
country, and since also, I received such comfort in my affliction as
I trust in God never to forget, and shall labor, by his grace, to
recompense in the only way possible to me, and that is, by pre-
senting your soul, person, house, and all your necessities, in
prayer to Him, whose I hope you are, and who is able to keep you
till that day of appearance, and to present you before his face with
joy-
I am confident that your Ladyship is going forward in the be-
gun journey to your Lord and Father's home and Kingdom ;
howbeit, ye want not temptations within and without. And who,
among the saints, hath ever taken that castle without stroke of
sword ? the Chief of the house, our Elder Brother, our Lord Jesus,
not being excepted, who won his own house at home, due to him
by birth, with much blood and many blows. Your Ladyship hath
the more need to look to yourself, because our Lord hath placed
you higher than the rest, and your way to Heaven lieth through
a more wild and waste wilderness than the way of many of your
fellow-travellers, not only through the midst of this wood of thorns,
the cumbersome world, but also through these dangerous paths,
the vain-glory of it — the consideration whereof hath often moved
me to pity your soul, and the soul of your worthy and noble hus-
band. And it is more to you to win' Heaven, being ships of greater
burden, and in the main sea, than for little vessels, that are not
so much in the mercy and reverence of the storms, because they
may come quietly to their port by launching along the coast ; for
the which cause ye do much, if, in the midst of such a tumult of
business and crowd of temptations, ye shall give Christ Jesus his
own court, 2 and his own due place in your soul. I know and am
persuaded that that lovely One, Jesus, is dearer to you than many
kingdoms ; and that ye esteem him your Well-beloved, and the
Standard-bearer among ten thousand. (Cant. v. 10.) And it be-
comcth him full well to take the place, and the board-head in your
soul, before all the world. I knew and saw him with you in the
furnace of affliction ^ — for there he wooed you to himself, and chose
you to be his ; and now he craveth no other hire of you but your
love, and that he get no cause to be jealous of you. And, there-
fore, dear and worthy Lady, be like to the fresh river, that keepeth
its own fresh taste in the salt sea. This world is not worthy of
your soul; give it not a good-day, when Christ cometh into
1 Reach. a Influence.
Rutherford's letters. 75
competition with it. Be like one of another country. Home ! and
stay not; for the sun is fallen low, and nigh the tops of the moun-
tains, and the shadows are stretched out in great length. Linger
not by the way. The world and sin would train you on, and
make you turn aside : leave not the way for them, — and the Lord
Jesus be at the voyage !
Madam, many eyes are upon you, and many would be glad that
your Ladyship should spill' a Christian, and mar a good professor.
Lord Jesus, mar their godless desires, and keep the conscience
whole without a crack ! If there be a hole in it, so that it take
in water at a leck,^ it will with difficulty mend again. It is a
dainty delicate creature, and a rare piece of the workmanship of
your Maker ; and, therefore, deal gently with it, and keep it en-
tire, that, amidst this world's glory, your Ladyship may learn
to entertain Christ; and that whatsoever creature your Ladyship
findeth not to smell of him may have no better relish to you
than the white of an egg.
Madam, it is a part of the truth of your profession to drop
words into the ears of your noble husband continually of eternity,
judgment, death. Hell, Heaven, the honorable profession, the sins
of his father's house. He must reckon with God for his father's
debt ; forgetting of accounts payeth not debt ; nay, the interest
of a forgotten bond runneth up with God to interest upon in-
terest. I know that he looketh homeward, and loveth the truth ;
but I pity him with my soul, because of his many temptations. Sa-
tan layeth upon men a burden of cares above a load, and maketh
a pack-horse of men's souls, when they are wholly set upon this
world. We owe the Devil no such service. It were wisdom to
throw off that load into a mire, and cast all our cares over upon
God.
Madam, think that ye have no child. Subscribe a bond to
your Lord, that she shall be his, if he take her ; and thanks,
and praise, and glory to his holy name shall be the interest for
a year's loan of her. Look for crosses ; and, while it is fair
weather, mend the sails of the ship.
Now, hoping that your Ladyship will pardon my tediousness,
I commend your soul and person to the grace and mercy of our
sweet Lord, Jesus, in whom I am
Your Ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Nov 15, 1633.
LETTER XXIX.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Having received a letter from some of the worthiest
of the ministry in this kingdom, the contents whereof I am de-
1 Spoil. 2 Leak.
76 Rutherford's letters.
sired to communicate to such professors, in these parts, as, I
know, love the beauty of Zion, and are afflicted to see the Lord's
vineyard trodden under foot by the wild boars out of the wood,
wliicii lay it waste, I could not but also desire your Ladyship's
help to join with the rest, desiring you to impart it to my Lord,
your husband ; and, if ye think it needful, I shall write to his
Lordship, as Mr. G. G. shall advertise me.
Know, therefore, that the best affected of the ministry have
thought it convenient and necessary, at such a time as this, that
all who love the truth should join their prayers together, and cry
to God with humiliation and fasting. The times, which are
agreed upon, are the first two sabbaths of February next, and
the six days intervening betw^ixt these sabbaths, as they may
conveniently be had, and the first sabbath of every quarter : — and
the causes, as they are written to me, are these^
L Besides the distresses of the reformed churches abroad, the
many reigning sins of uncleanness, ungodliness, and unrighteous-
ness in this land: the present judgments on the land, and many
more hanging over us, whereof few are sensible, or yet know the
right and true cause of them.
IL The lamentable and pitiful estate of a glorious Church, (in so
short a time, and against so many bonds.) in doctrine, sacrament,
and discipline, so sore persecuted, in the persons of faithful pas-
tors and professors, and the door of God's house kept so strait, by
bastard porters, in so much that worthy instruments, able for the
work, are held at the door : tlie rulers having turned over religion
into policy, and the multitude ready to receive any religion that
shall be enjoined by authority.
IH. In our humiliation, besides that we are under a necessity
of deprecating God's wrath, and vowing to God sincerely new
obedience, the weakness, coldness, silence, and lukewarmness of
some of the best of the ministry, and the deadness of professors,
who have sulfered the truth both secretly to be stolen away, and
openly to be plucked from us, should be confessed.
IV. Atheism, idolatry, profanity, and vanity should be confessed;
our King's heart recommended to God; and God entreated that
he would stir up the nobles, and the people to turn from their evil
ways.
Thus, madau), hoping that your Ladyship will join with others,
that such a work be not slighted at such a necessary time, wdien
our Kirk is at the overturning, I shall promise to myself your
help, as the Lord, in secrecy and prudence will enable you, that
your Ladyship may rejoice with the Lord's people when de-
liverance shall come ; for true and sincere humiliation cometh
always speed' with God : — and when authority. King, court, and
churchmen oppose the truth, what other armor have we than
prayer and faith ? whereby, if we wrestle with him, there is ground
to hope that those who would re-move the burdensome Stone out
1 Is successful.
Rutherford's letters. 117
of its place, shall but hurt their back, and the Stone shall not be
moved, at least, not removed, (Zech. xii. 3.)
Grace, grace be with you from Him, who hath called you to the
inheritance of the saints in lig-ht.
Your Ladyship's,
At all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 23, 1634.
LETTER XXX.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered— I am in care, and
fear for this work of our Lord's, now near approaching, because
of the danger of the time, and I dare not for my soul be silent
to see my Lord's house burning and not cry, "Fire ! fire !" there-
fore, seek from our Lord wisdom spiritual, and not black policy,
to speak with liberty our Lord's truth. I am cast down, and
would fain have access and presence to the King that day, even
howbeit I should break up iron doors. I believe that you will
not forget me ; and you will desire Jean Brown, Thomas Carson,
and Marion Carson, to help me. Pray for well-cooked meat, and
a heartsome^ Saviour, with joy crying, "Welcome, in my Father's
name !"
I am confident that Zion shall be well : the bush shall burn
and not consume, for the good-will of Him that dwelleth in the
bush. But the Lord is making on a fire^ in Jerusalem, and pur-
poseth to blov/ the bellows, and to melt the tin and brass, and to
bring out a fair beautiful bride of the furnace, that will be married
over again upon the new Husband, and sing as in the days of her
youth, when the contract of marriage is w^ritten over again. But
I fear that the Bride be hidden for a time from the Dragon, that
pursueth the woman with child ; but what, howbeit we go lurk in
the wilderness for a time ? for the Lord will take his Kirk to the
wilderness and speak to her heart.
Nothing casteth me down, but only that I fear the Lord will
cast down the shepherds' tents, and feed his own in a secret place ;
but let us, however matters frame, cast over the affairs of the
Bride upon the Bridegroom ; the government is upon his shoulders,
and he dow^ bear us all well enough. That fallen star, the Prince
of the Bottomless Pit, knoweth it is near the time when he shall
be tormented ; and now in his evening he hath gathered his
armies to win one battle or two, in the edge of the evening^ at the
sun's going down. And when our Lord has been watering his
vineyards in France, and Germany, and Bohemia, how can we
think ourselves Christ's Sister, if we be not like him, and our other
' Cheerful. 2 X'o make on ajire, put the fuel in order.
3 Is able. * Twilight.
78 Rutherford's letters.
great sisters 1 I cannot but think, seeing the ends of the earth are
given to Christ, Ps. ii. 8, and Scotland is the end of the earth,
(and so we are in Christ's charter-tailzie,') that our Lord will keep
his possession. We fall by promise and law to Christ : he wan us
with the sweat of his brows, (if 1 may say so,) his Father promised
him his life-rent of Scotland. Glory, glory to our King ; long
may he wear his Crown ! O Lord, let us never see another
King ! ^ Oh, let him come down hke rain upon the new-mown
grass !
I had you in remembrance on Saturday last, in the morning, in
a great measure, and was brought thrice on end, in remembrance
of you in my prayer to God.
Grace, grace be your portion.
Yours, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, March 2, 1634.
LETTER XXXL
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered — please you to un-
derstand that, to my grief, our communion is delayed till Sabbath
come eight days ; for the Laird and Lady have earnestly desired
me to delay it, because the Laird is sick, and he feareth he be not
able to travel, because he hath lately taken physic. The Lord
bless that work. Commend it to God, as you love me : for I love
not Satan's thorns cast in the Lord's way. The Lord rebuke him.
I trust in God's mercy that Satan has gotten but a delay, but no
free discharge that his Kingdom sliall not be hurt. Commend the
Laird to your God. I pray you to advertise your people, that they
be not disappointed in coming hither. Show such of them as you
love in Christ, from me, that Jesus Christ will be welcoraer when
he coraeth, in that he has sharpened their desires for eight days'
space. Your daughter is well, I hope, every way. Forget not
God's Kirk; they are but bastards, and not sons and daughters,
that mourn not for Zion. Lord, hear us !
No further. Jesus Christ be with your spirit. I shall remem-
ber you. and your new house.
Lord Jesus, go from the one house to the other !
Yours, at all power in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth.
1 Charter of entail.
2 That is, in spiritual matters, for Rutherford, as appears from these Letters, was a
most loyul subject to his earthly king.
Rutherford's letters. 79
LETTER XXXII.
for MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — My old and dearest love in Christ
remembered — Know that I have been visiting my Lady Kenmure.
Her child is with the Lord. I entreat you to visit her, and desire
the Good-wife' of Barcapple to visit her, and Knockbrex, if you
see him in the town. My Lord, her husband, is absent, and I
think that she will be heavy.
You know what Mr. W. Dalgleish and I desired you to deal for,
at my Lord Kirkcudbright's hand. Send me word if you obtained
anything at my Lord's hands, anent the giving up of our names to
the High Commission ; for I hear it is not for nothing that the
Bishop hath taken that course. Our Lord knoweth best what is
good for an old Kirk, that is fallen from her first love, and hath
forgotten her Husband, days without number. A trial is like to
come on ; but I am sure, that our Husbandman, Christ, shall lose
chaff, but no corn at all. Yet there is a dry wind coming, but
neither to fan nor to purge. Happy are they who are not blown
away with the chaff: for we shall but suffer temptation for ten
days : but those who are faithful to the death shall receive the
crown of life. I hear daily what hath been spoken of myself most
unjustly and falsely ; and no marvel, the Dragon, with the swing
of his tail, hath made the third part of the stars to fall from Hea-
ven, and the fallen would have many to fall with them. If ever
Satan was busy, now, when he knoweth that his time is but
short, he is busy. Yet a little while, and He that shall come, will
come, and will not tarry. I know, that, ere it be long, the Lord
will come, and red all pleas ^ betwixt us and his enemies. Now,
welcome Lord Jesus, go fast !
Send me word about Grizzel, your daughter, whom I remember
in Christ; and desire her to cast herself into His arms, who was
born of a woman, and, being the Ancient of days, was made a
young weeping Child. It was not for nothing that our Brother,
Jesus, was an infant. It was, that he might pity infant believers,
who were to come out of the womb into the world. I believe that
our Lord Jesus will be waiting on with mercy, mercy, mercy to
the end of that battle, and bring her through with life and peace,
and a sign of God's favor. I shall expect advertisement from )ou,
and especially if you fear her.
Mistress, you remember that I said to you, anent ^ your love to
me and my brother, begun in Christ; ye know that we are here
but strangers, and you have not yet found us a dry well, as others
1 Good-man, and good-wife were species of titles in former times in Scotland, indi-
cating that the persons thus designated were among the most respectable of the smaller
proprietors ofland. or of the yeomanry, both for wealth and worth.
2 Settle all disputes, by deciding wliich party is in the wrong. 3 Touching.
80 Rutherford's letters.
have been. Be not overcome of any suspicion ; I trust in God
that the Lord, wl)o knit us together, will keep us together. It is
time now that the lambs of Jesus should all run togetlier, when
the wolf is barking at them : yet I know, that, ere God's bairns
want a cross, their love amongst themselves shall be a cross ; but
our Lord giveth love for another end. I know that ye will with
love cover infirmities ; and our Lord give you wisdom in all tilings.
I think love hath broad shoulders, and v/ill bear many things, and
yet neither faint, nor sweat, nor fall under the burden.
Commend me to your husband, and dear Grizzel. I think on
her: Lord Jesus be in the furnace with her, and then she shall but
smoke, and not burn. Desire Mr. Robert to excuse my not seeing
of him at his house ; I have my own reasons therefor.'
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 25, 1G34.
LETTER XXXIIL
TO MY LADY KENMURE
Madam, — All submissive and dutiful obedience in our Lord,
Jesus, remembered, — I trust that I need not much entreat your
Ladyship to look to Him, who hath stricken you at this time ; but
my duty, in the memory of that comfort which I found in your
Ladyship's kindness, when I was no less heav}?^, in a case not un-
like that, speaketh to me, to say something now ; and I wish I
could ease your Ladyship at least with words. I am persuaded
that your Physician will not slay you, but purge you; and seeing
he calleth himself the Chirurgeon, who maketh the wound and
bindeth it up again, (for to lance a wound is not to kill, but to
cure the patient.) (Deut. xxxii. 39, 1 Sam. v. 6, Job vi. 18, Hos.
vi. 1,) I believe that faith will teach you to kiss a striking Lord,
and so to acknowledge the sovereignty of God, in the death of a
child, to be above the power of us mortal men, who may pluck up
a flower in the bud, and not be blamed for it. If our dear Lord
pluck up one of his roses, and pull down sour and green fruit be-
fore the harvest, who can challenge him : for he sendetii us to his
world, as men to a market, wherein some stay many hours, and
eat and drink, and buy and sell, and pass through the fair, till
they be weary ; and such are those who live long, and get a
hearty fill of this life : and others again come slipping in to the
morning market, and do neither sit nor stand, nor buy nor sell,
but look about them a little, and pass presently home again; and
these are infants and young ones, who end their short market in
the morning, and get but a short view of the fair. Our Lord, who
hath numbered man's months, and set him bounds that he cannot
1 For it.
Rutherford's letters. 81
pass, (Job xiv. 5,) hath written the length of our market ; and it
is easier to complain of the decree than to change it.
I verily believe, when I write this, that your Lord hath taught
your Ladyship to lay your hand on your mouth: but I shall be
far from desiring your Ladyship or any others to cast by' a cross,
like an old useless bill, that is only for the fire ; but would rather
wish that each cross were looked in the face seven times, and
were read over and over again. It is the messenger of the Lord,
and speaketh something ; and the man of understanding will
hear the rod. and Him that hath appointed it. Try what is the
taste of the Lord's cup, and drink with God's blessing, that ye
may grow thereby. I trust in God that whatever speech it utter
to your soul, this is one word in it, (Job v. 17,) "Behold, blessed
is the man whom God correcteth :" and that it saith to you, "Ye
are from home while here : ye are not of this world, as your Re-
deemer, Christ, was not of this world." There is something keep-
ing for you, which is worth the having. All that is here is con-
demned to die, to pass away like a snow-ball before a summer-
sun ; and since death took first possession of yours, it hath been
and daily is creeping nearer and nearer to yourself, howbeit with no
noise of feet. Your Husbandman, and Lord, hath lopped off some
branches already ; the tree itself is to be transplanted to the high
garden. — In a good lime be it — our Lord ripen your Ladyship.
All these crosses, (and indeed when I remember them, they are
heavy and many— peace, peace be the end of them !) are to make
you white and ripe for the Lord's harvest hook.'^ I have seen the
Lord weaning you from the breasts of this world. It was never
his mind that it should be your patrimony, and God be thanked
for that ; ye look the liker one of the heirs. Let the movables
go, — why not? they are not yours, — fasten your grips ^ upon -the
heritage ; and our Lord, Jesus, njake the charters sure, — and give
your Ladyship to grow as a palm tree on God's Mount Zion ;
howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast.
This is all I can do, to recommend your case to your Lord, who
hath you written upon the palms of his hands. If I were able to
do more, your Ladyship may believe me, that gladly I would. I
trust shortly to see your Ladyship. Now He, who hath called you,
confirm and establish your heart in grace unto the day of the
liberty of the sons of God.
Your Ladyship's,
At all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 29, 1C34.
1 Aside. * Sickle. 3 Gripe.
6
82 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XXXIV.
for MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered —
I hear this day that your town is to choose a commissioner for the
Parliament, and I was written to from Edinburgh, to see that
good men should be chosen in your bounds : and I have heard,
this day, that Robert Glendonning, or John Ewart, look to be
chosen. I beseech you to see that this be not. The Lord's cause
craveth other witnesses to speak for him than such men ; and,
therefore, let it not be said that Kirkcudbright, which is spoken
of in this kingdom for their religion, hath sent a man to be their
mouth that will speak against Christ. Such a time as this will
not fall out once in half an age. I would entreat your husband
to take it upon him ; it is an honorable and necessary service for
Christ; and show him that I wrote unto you for that effect. I
fear that William Glendonning hath not skill and authority. I
am in great heaviness. Pray for me ; for we must take our life
in our hand in this ill time. Let us stir up ourselves to lay our
Lord's Bride, and her wrongs, before our Husband and Lord.
Lord Jesus be with your spirit !
Yours, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, May 20.
LETTER XXXV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
My VERY Noble and Worthy Lady, — So oft as I call to
mind the comforts that I myself, a poor friendless stranger, re-
ceived from your Ladyship here in a strange part of the country,
when my Lord took from me the Delight of mine eyes, as the
word speaketh in Ezek. xxiv. 16, (which wound is not yet fully
healed and cured,) I trust your Lord will remember that, and give
you comfort now, at such a time as this, wherein your dearest
Lord hath made you a widow, that ye may be a free woman for
Christ, who is now suiting for marriage-love of you ; and, there-
fore, since you lye alone in your bed, let Christ be as a bundle of
myrrh, to sleep and lye all the night betwixt your breasts, (Cant.
i. 13,) and then your bed is better filled than before. And, seeing
that among all crosses spoken of in our Lord's wdrd, this giveth
you a particular right to make God your Husband, (who was not
so yours while your husband was alive,) read God's mercy out of
this visitation. And, albeit I must out of some experience say,
that the mourning for the husband of your youth be, by God's
own mouth, the heaviest worldly sorrow, (Joel i. 8,) and, though
Rutherford's letters. 83
this be the weightiest burden that ever lay upon your back, yet
ye know when the fields are emptied, and your husband now
asleep in the Lord, if ye will wait upon Him, who hideth his face
for awhile, that it lyeth upon God's honor and truth to fill the field,
and to be a husband to the widow. See, and consider, then, what
ye have lost, and how little it is. Therefore, madam, let me en-
treat you in the bowels of Christ Jesus, and by the comforts of
his Spirit and your appearance before him, let God, and men, and
angels, now see what is in you. The Lord hath pierced the
vessel, it will be known whether there be in it wine or water : let
your faith and patience be seen, that it may be known that your
only beloved, first and last, hath been Christ: and, therefore, now,
were your whole love upon him, that he alone is a suitable object
for your love and all the affections of your soul. God hath dried
up one channel of your love, by the removal of your husband :
let now that spait^ run upon Christ. Your Lord and Lover hath
graciously taken out your husband's name, and your name, out
of the summonses, that are raised at the instance of the terrible
sin-revenging Judge of the world, against the House of Kenmure.
And I dare say that God's hammering of you from your youth,
is only to make you a fair carved stone, in the high upper temple
of the New Jerusalem. Your Lord never thought this world's
vain-painted glory a gift worthy of you ; and, therefore, would not
bestow you, because he is to propine^ you with a better portion.
Let the movables go, the inheritance is yours. Ye are a child
of the house, and joy is laid up for you. It is long in coming,
but not the worse for that. I am now expecting to see, and that
with joy and comfort, that which I hoped of you, since I knew
you fully ; even that ye have laid such strength upon the Holy
One of Israel, that ye defy troubles ; and that your soul is a castle
that may be besieged, but cannot be taken. What have you to
do here ? This world never looked like a friend upon you. Ye
owe it little love, it looked ever sour-like upon you ; howbeit ye
should woo it, it will not match with you; and, therefore, never
seek warm fire under cold ice. This is not a field where your
happiness groweth ; it is up above, where (Rev. vii. 9,) there are
a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and
kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and
before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their
hands : — what ye could never get here, ye shall find there. And
withal consider, how in all these trials (and truly they have been
many) your Lord hath been loosing you at the root from perishing
things, and hunting after you, to grip^ your soul. Madam, for
the sake of the Son of God, let him not miss his grip,^ but stay
and abide in the love of God, as Jude saith, (verse 21.)
Now, madam, I hope that your Ladyship will take these lines
in good part ; and wherein I have fallen short and failed to your
Ladyship, in not evidencing what I was obliged to your more than
1 Flood. 2 Present. 3 Catch. * Grasp.
84 RUTHERFORDS LETTERS.
(leserved love and respect, I request a full pardon for it. Again,
ray dear and noble Lady, let me beseech you to lift up your head,
for the day of your redemption draweth near ; and remember that
that star which shined in Galloway is now shining in another
world. Now I pray that God may answer his own style to your
soul • and that he may be to you the God of all consolations.
Thus I remain your Ladyship's,
At all dutiful obedience in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, Sept. 14, 1634.
LETTER XXXVI.
TO MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Mistress, — My dearest love in Christ remembered — I entreat
you to charge your soul to return to rest, and to glorify your
dearest Lord in believing: and know that, for the good-will of
Him, that dwelleth in the bush, the burning Kirk shall not be
consumed to ashes: but, (Deut. xxxiii. 16,) "Blessing shall come
on the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him who
was separated from his brethren." And are not the saints sepa-
rated from their brethren, and sold, and hated ? for, (Gen. xlix. 23,)
"The archers have sorely grieved Joseph, and shot at him, and
hated him." (Ver. 24,) " But his bow abode in strength, and the
arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty
God of Jacob : from him is the Shepherd and the Stone of Israel."
The Stone of Israel shall not be broken in pieces. It is hammered
upon by the children of this world, and we shall live, and not die.
Our Lord hath done all this, to see if we will believe, and not give
'over ; and I am persuaded that ye must of necessity stick by your
work. The eye of Christ hath been upon all this business ; and
he taketh good heed, too, who is for him and who is against him.
Let us do our part, as we would be approved of Christ. The Son
of God is near to his enemies; if they were not deaf, they may
hear the din of his feet : and he will come with a start, upon his
weeping bairns, and take them on his knee, and lay their head in
his bosom, and dry their watery eyes— and this day is fast coming.
Yet a little time, and the vision will speak, it will not tarry, (Hab.
ii.) These questions betwixt us and our adversaries shall all be
decided m yonder day, when the Son of God will come and red all
pleas;' and it shall be seen whether we or they have been for
Christ, and who have been pleading for Baal. It is not known
what we are now : but when our Life shall appear in glory, then
we shall see who laugheth fastest that day ; therefore, we must
possess our souls in patience, and go into our chamber, and rest
until the indignation be past. We shall not weep long, when our
Lord will take us up in the day that he gathereth his jewels : and,
1 Settle all disputes, by deciding which party is in the wrong.
RUTHERFORD'S LETTERS. OO
(Mai. iii. 16,) " They that feared the Lord spake often one to an-
other; and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of
remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the
Lord, and that thought upon his name."
And I shall never be of another faith, than that our Lord is
heating a furnace for the enemies of his Kirk in Scotland. It is
true that the Spouse of Christ hath played the harlot, and liath
left her first Husband ; and the enemies think that they offend
not, for we have sinned against the Lord, but they shall get the
Devil to their thanks. The rod shall be cast into tlie fire, that we
may sing as in the days of our youth. My dear friend, therefore,
lay down your head upon Christ's breast : weep not, the Lion of
the tribe of Judah will arise. The sun is gone down on the pro-
phets, and our gold is become dim ; and the Lord feedeth his peo-
ple with waters of gall and wormwood ; yet Christ standeth but
behind the wall, his bowels are moved for Scotland : he waiteth,
(as Isaiah saith,) that he may show mercy. If we could go home,
and take our brethren with us, weeping with our faces toward
Zion, asking the way thitherward, he would bring back our cap-
tivity. We may not think that God has no care of his own honor,
while men tread it under their feet ; he will clothe himself with
vengeance, as with a cloak, and appear against our enemies for
our deliverance. Ye were never yet beguiled, and God will not
now begin with you. Wrestle still with the Angel of the cove-
nant, and you shall get the blessing : fight, he delighteth to be
overcome by wrestling.
Commend me to Grizzel. Desire her to learn to know the ad-
versaries of the Lord, and to take them as her adversaries ; and to
learn to know the right gate ' in to the Son of God ! Oh, but ac-
quaintance with the Son of God, to say, "My Well-beloved is
mine, and I am his," is a sweet and glorious course of life, that
none know but those who are sealed and marked in the forehead
with Christ's mark, and the new name that Christ writeth upon
his own.
Grace, grace and mercy be with you.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Sept. 25, 1634.
LETTER XXXVIL
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — All dutiful obedience in our Lord remembered — I
know that ye are, now, near one of those straits in which ye have
been before : but, because your outward comforts are fewer, I pray
Him, whose ye are, to supply what ye want, another way. For,
hovvbeit we cannot win "^ to the bottom of His wise providence,
1 Way. 2 Reach.
86 Rutherford's letters.
who ruleth all ; yet it is certain that this is not only good, which
the Almighty hath done, but that it is best : and he hath reckoned
all your steps to Heaven ; and if your Ladyship were through this
water, there are the fewer behind ; and, if this were the last, I
hope that your Ladyship hath learned by on-waiting to make
your acquaintance with death, which, being to the Lord, the wo-
man's Seed, Jesus, only a bloody heel, and not a broken head,
(Gen. iii. 15,) cannot be ill to his friends, who get far less of death
than himself. Therefore, madam, seeing ye know not but that
the journey is ended, and that ye are come to the water-side, in
God's wisdom, look all your papers and your counts, and whether
ye be ready to receive the Kingdom of Heaven as a little child, in
whom there is little haughtiness, and much humility. I would be
far from discouraging your Ladyship; but there is an absolute ne-
cessity, that, near eternity, we look ere we leap, seeing no man
winneth' back again to mend his leap. I am confident that your
Ladyship thinketh often upon it, and that your old Guide will go
before you and take your hand — his love to you will not grow
sour, nor wear out of date, as the love of men, which growelh old
and gray-headed often before themselves. Ye have so much the
more reason to love a better life than this, because this world hath
been to you a cold fire, with little heat to the body, and as little
light, and much smoke to hurt the eyes. But, madam, your Lord
would have you thinking it but dry breasts, full of wind, and
empty of food. In this late visitation that hath befallen your La-
dyship, ye have seen God's love and care, in such a measure, that
I thought our Lord brake the sharp point off the cross, and made
us, and your Ladyship see Christ take possession and infeftment
upon earth of Him, who is now reigning and triumphing with the
hundred and forty and four thousand, who stand with the Lamb
on Mount Zion. I know that the sweetest of it is bitter to you ;
but your Lord will not give you painted crosses. He pareth not
all the bitterness from the cross, neither taketh he the sharp edge
quite from it; then'^ it should be of your waling ^ and not of his,
which would have as little reason in it, as it would have profit for
us. Only, madam, God commandeth you now to believe, and
cast anchor in the dark night, and climb up the mountain. He
who hath called you, establish you an8 confirm you to the end.
I had a purpose to have visited your Ladyship ; but when I
thought better upon it, the truth is, I could not see what my com-
pany could profit you : and this hath broken oflT my purpose, and
no other thing. I know that many honorable friends and worthy
professors will see your Ladyship ; and that the Son of God is with
you, to whose love and mercy, from my soul, I commend your
Ladyship, and remain. Your Ladyship's,
At all dutiful obedience, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, Nov. 29, 1634.
> Getteth. s For in that case. 3 Selecting.
Rutherford's letters. ST
LETTER XXXVIII.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — My humble obedience in the Lord remembered —
know that it hath pleased the Lord to let me see, by all appear-
ance, my labors, in God's house here, are at an end ; and I must
now learn to suffer, in the which I am a dull scholar. By a strange
providence, some of my papers anent the corruptions of this time
are come to our King's hand. I know that by the wise and well-
affected I shall be censured, as not wise nor circumspect enough ;
but it is ordinary that that should be a part of the cross of those
who suffer for Him. Yet I love and pardon the instrument ; I
would commit my life to him, howbeit by him this hath befallen
me — but I look higher than to him.
I make no question of your Ladyship's love and care to do what
ye can for my help ; and I am persuaded that in my adversities
your Ladyship will wish me well. I seek no other thing than that
my Lord may be honored by me in giving a testimony. I was
willing to do him more service ; but seeing he will have no more
of my labors, and this Land will thrust me out, I pray for grace
to learn to be acquainted with misery, if I may give so rough a
name to such a mark of those who shall be crowned with Christ.
And, howbeit I may possibly prove a faint-hearted, unwise man in
that, yet I dare to say that I intend otherwise : and I desire not to
go on the lee-side, or sunny-side of religion, to put truth betwixt
me and a storm— my Saviour did not so for me, who in his suffer-
ing took the windy side of the hill.
No further, but the Son of God be with you.
Your Ladyship's in the Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, Dec. 5, 1634.
LETTER XXXIX.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved and Dear Sister, — I know that your heart
is cast down for the desolation like to come upon this Kirk, and
the appearance that a hireling sliall be thrust in upon Christ's
flock in that town — but send a heavy heart up to Christ; it will
be welcome. Those that are with the Beast and the Dragon
must make war with the Lamb : but the Lamb shall overcome
tlffem ; for he is the Lord of lords, and King of kings ; and they
who are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful, (Rev. xvii.
14.) Our ten days shall have an end ; all the former things will
be forgotten, when we shall be up before the throne. Christ hath
been ever thus in the world, he hath always the defender's part,
88 Rutherford's letters.
and hath been still in the camp, fighting the Church's battles.
The enemies of the Son of God shall be fed with their own flesh,
and shall drink their own blood : and, therefore, their part of it
shall at last be found hard enough — so that we may look forward
and pity them. Until the number of the elect be fulfilled, Christ's
garments must be rolled in blood ; he cometh from Edom, from the
slaughter of his enemies, (Isa. Ixiii. 1,) clothed with dyed gar-
ments, glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his
strength. " Who is this, (saith he,) that appeareth in this glorious
posture ?" Our great He,^ that He,' who is mighty to save ; whose
glory shineth, while he sprinkleth the blood of his adversaries upon
his garments, and staineth all his raiment. The glory of his
righteous revenges shineth forth in these stains. But seeing that
our world is not hereaway," we poor children, far from home, must
steal through many waters, weeping as we go, and withal believ-
ing that we do the Lord's faithfulness no wrong, seeing he hath
said, (Isaiah li. 12,) " I, even I, am he that comforteth you : who
art thou that art afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of
man who shall be made as grass ?" (Isaiah xliii. 2,) " When thou
passest through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through the
rivers, they shall not overflow thee : when thou walkest through
the fire, thou shall not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee."
There is a cloud gathering, and a storm coming. This Land
shall be turned upside down : and, if ever the Lord spake to me —
think on it — Christ's bride shall be glad of a hole to hide her head
in ; and the Dragon may so far prevail as to chase the Woman
and her Man-child over sea. But there shall be a gleaning, two
or three berries left in the top of the olive tree, of which God will
say, " Destroy them not, for there is a blessing in them." There-
after there shall be a fair sun-blink* on Christ's old Spouse, and a
clear sky, and she shall sing as in the days of her youth. The
Antichrist and the great red Dragon will lop Christ's branches, and
bring his vine to a low stump, under the feet of those who carry
the mark of the beast ; but the Plant of Renown, the Man, whose
name is the Branch, shall bud forth again and blossom as the
rose, and there shall be fair white flourishes* again, with most
pleasant fruits upon that Tree of Life. A fair season may he
have ! Grace, grace be upon that blessed and beautiful Tree !
under whose shadow we shall sit, and his fruit shall be sweet to
our taste. But Christ will woo his handful in the fire, and choose
his own in the furnace of afihction. But, be it so, he dow not,^ he
will not slay his children. Love will not let him make a full end.
The Covenant will cause him to hold his hand. " Fear not,
then," saith the First and the Last, He who was dead, and is
alive. We see not Christ sharpening and furbishing his swffid
for his enemies ; and, therefore, our faithless hearts say, as Zion
* He is often used in the Scottish dialect, as WM is in the Hebrew, as a name of
God. 2 In this present life.
3 Sun-gleam. * Blossoms. s Is not able.
Rutherford's letters. 89
did, " The Lord hath forsaken me." But God reproveth her, and
saith, " Well, well, Zion, is that well said 1 Think again on it ;
ye are in the wrong to me." (Isaiah xlix. 15,) " Can a woman
forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on
the fruit of her womb? Yea, she may ; yet will I not forget thee.
(Ver. 16,) Behold, I have engraven thee upon the palms of my
hands." Ye break your heart, and grow heavy, and forget that
Christ hath your name engraven on the palms of his hands, in
great letters. In the name of the Son of God, believe that buried
Scotland, dead and buried in her dear Bridegroom, shall rise the
third day again, and there shall be a new growth after the old
timber is cut down.
I commend you, and your burdens, and heavy heart, to the siip-
portings of His grace and good-will, who dwelt in the bush, to Him,
who was separated from his brethren. Try your husband afar off,
to see if he can be induced to think upon going to America.
Oh, to see the sight next to Christ's coming in the clouds, the
most joyful ! our elder brethren, the Jews, and Christ fall upon one
another's necks, and kiss each other ! They have been long
asunder, they will be kind to one another when they meet : O
day ! O longed for, and lovely day, dawn ! O sweet Jesus, let me
see that sight that will be as life from the dead, thee and thy an-
cient people in mutual embraces !
Desire your daughter to close with Christ, upon terms of suffer-
ing for him ; for the cross is an old mailing' and plot of ground
that heth to Christ's house: our dear Chief had always that rent
lying to his inheritance. But tell her, that the day is near the
dawning ; the sky is riving, our Beloved will be on us ere ever
we be aware. The Antichrist, and death and Hell, and Christ's
enemies, and ours, shall be bound, and cast into the Bottomless
Pit.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 22, 1635.
LETTER XL.
TO MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Loving and Dear Sister, — For Zion's sake hold not your
peace, neither be discouraged for the on-going of this persecution ;
Jehovah is in this burning bush. The floods may swell and roar,
but our ark shall swim above the water: it cannot sink, because
a Saviour is in it. Because our Beloved was ijot let in by his
Spouse, when he stood at the door with his wet and frozen head;
therefore, he will have us to seek him a while ; and, while we are
seeking, the watchmen, that go about the walls, have stricken the
1 Farm.
90 Rutherford's letters.
poor woman, and have taken away her veil from her: but'yet a
little while, and our Lord will come again; Scotland's sky shall
clear again ; her moment must go over. I dare, in faith, say, and
write — I am not now dreaming — that Christ is but seeking, (what
he will have, and make,) a clean, glistering bride out of the fire:
God send him his errand ; but he cannot want what he seeketh.
In the mean time, one way or other, he will find, or make a nest .
for his mourning dove. What is this that we are doing, breaking"^
the neck of our faith 1 We are not come, as yet, to the mouth of
the Red Sea ; and howbeit we were, for his honor's sake he must
dry it up. It is our part to die gripping' and holding fast his faith-
ful promise. If the Beast should get leave to ride through the
land, and to seal such as are his, he will not get one lamb with
him ; for these are secured, and sealed as the servants of God.
In God's name, let Christ take his barn-floor, and all that is in it,
to a hill, and winnow it ; let him sift his corn, and sweep his house,
and seek his gold. The Lord shall cog^ the rumbling wheels, or
turn them ; for the remainder of wrath doth he restrain. He can
loose the belt of kings; to God, their belt, wherewith they are girt,
is knit with a single draw-knot. ^
As for a pastor to your town, your conscience can bear you
witness that ye have done your part. Let the Master of the
vineyard now see to his garden, seeing ye have gone on till he
hath said "Stand still." The will of the Lord be done. But
a trial is not to give up with God, and believe no more.
I thank my God, in Christ, that 1 find the force of my tempta-
tion abated, and its edge blunted, since I spoke to you last. I
know not if the tempter be hovering* until he find the dam
gather again, and me more secure ; but it hath been my burden ;
and I am yet more confident that the Lord will succor and de-
liver.
1 intend, God willing, that our communion shall be celebrated
the first sabbath after Pasch ;* our Lord, that great Master of
the feast, send us one hearty and heartsome" supper; for I look
that it sball be the last. But we expect that when the shadows
shall flee away, and the day dawn, and our Lord come to his
garden, he will feed us in green pastures without fear; — the dogs
then shall not be hounded out amongst the sheep. I earnestly
desire your prayers for assistance at our work, and put others
with you to do the same.
Remember me to your husband ; and desire your daughter to
be kind to Christ, and seek to win near him. He will give her
a welcome into his house-of-wine, and bring her into the King's
' Grasping.
2 71) cog a wheel, is to place a stone or a piece of wood wedgewise between it and
the ground, to prevent it from moving.
3 A slip-knot, which can be loosened by simply pulling by one of the ends.
* Tarrying.
5 Easter, the season of the Passover, from n&3, Pdsach, be passed over.
* Gladsome. ' '
Rutherford's t.etters. 91
chambers. Oh how will the sight of his face, and the smell of
his g-arinents allure and ravish her heart !
Now the love of the lovely Son of God be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, 1635.
LETTER XLI.
FOR MARION M A C K N A U G H T .
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered — having appointed
a meeting with Mr. David Dickson, and knowing that B. will not
keep the presbytery, I cannot see you'now. Coinmend my journey
to God. My soul blesseth you for your last letter.
Be not discouraged ; Christ will not want the Isles-men ; the Isles
shall wait for his law : we are his inheritance, and he will sell no
part of his inheritance. For the sins of this land, and our breach
of the Covenant, contempt of the Gospel, and our defection from
the truth, he hath set up a burning furnace in Mount Zion ; but
I say it, and will abide by it, "The grass shall yet grow green on
our Mount Zion. There shall be dew all tlie night upon the lilies,
amongst which Christ feedeth, until the day break and tlie shadows
flee away : and the moth shall eat up the enemies of Christ," (Isa,
1. 9.) Let them make a fire of their own, and walk in the light
thereof, it shall not let them see to go to their bed ; but they shall
lye down in sorrow ; therefore, rejoice and believe.
This in haste. Grace, grace be with you and yours.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XLIL
FOR MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Loving and Dear Sister, — I fear that ye be moved and cast
down because of the late wrong, that your husband received in
your town-council. But, I pray you, comfort yourself in the Lord:
for a just cause bideth under the water only as long as wicked men
hold their hand above it; their arm will weary, and then the just
cause shall swim above, and the light that is sown for the right-
eous shall spring and grow up. If ye were not strangers here,
the dogs of the world would not bark at you, (2 Cor. vi. 8.) Ye
shall see all the windings and turnings that are in your way to
Heaven, out of God's word : for he will not lead you to the King-
dom at the nearest ; but you must go through "honor and dis-
honor, by evil report and good report ; as deceivers, and yet true ;
92 Rutherford's letters.
(ver. 9,) as unknown, and yet, well known ; as dying, and behold
we live ; as chastened, and not killed; (ver. 10,) as sorrowful, and
yet always rejoicing." The world is one of the enemies that we
have to fight with, but a vanquished and overcome enemy, and
like a beaten and forlorn soldier; for our Jesus hath taken the
armor from it. Let me then speak to you in his words : "Be of
good courage," saith the Captain of our salvation, "for I have
overcome the world." Ye shall neither be free of the scourge of
the tongue, nor of disgraces, even if it were buffeting, and spittings
upon the face, as was our Saviour's case, if ye follow Jesus Christ.
I beseech you, in the bowels of our Lord Jesus, to keep a good
conscience, as I trust ye do. Ye live not upon men's opinion ;
gold may be gold, and have the King's stamp upon it, wben it is
trampled upon by men. Happy are ye if, when the world tramp-
leth upon you in* your credit and good name, yet, ye are the
Lord's gold, stamped with the King of Heaven's image, and sealed
by his Spirit unto the day of your redemption. Pray for the spirit
of love. (1 Cor. xiii. 7,) Love "beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things."
And I pray you and your husband, yea, I charge you before
God, and the Lord, Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, to pray for
these your adversaries, and read this to your husband from me ;
and let both of you put on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies.
And, sister, remember how many thousands of talents of sins
your Master hath forgiven you ; forgive ye, therefore, your fellow-
servants one talent. Follow God's command in this, and seek not
after your own heart, and after your own eyes in this matter, as
the Spirit speaketh, (Numb. xv. 39.) Ask never the counsel of
your own heart here ; the world will blow up your heart now,
and cause it to swell, except the grace of God cause it to fall.
Jesus, even Jesus, the eternal Wisdom of the Father, give you
wisdom. I trust that God shall be glorified in you ; and a door
shall be opened unto you, as the Lord's prisoners of hope, as
Zechariah speaketh. It is a benefit to you that the wicked are
God's fan to purge you ; and I hope that they will blow away no
corn, or spiritual graces, but only your chaff. I pray you, in your
pursuit, to have so recourse to the law of men, that ye wander not
from the law of God. Be not cast down : if ye saw Him, who is
standing on the shore, holding out his arms to welcome you to
land, ye would wade, not only through a sea of wrongs, but through
Hell itself, to be at him ; and I trust in God, that ye see him
sometimes.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit, and all yours.
Your Brother, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth.
Rutherford's letters. 93
LETTER XLIII.
FOR MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Worthy and Dear Sister, — My dearest love in Christ re-
membered— as to that business, which I know you would so fain
have to take effect, my earnest desire is, that you stand still. Haste
not, and you shall see the salvation of God. The great Master-gard-
ener, the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, in a wonderful provi-
dence, with his own hand — I dare, if it were to edification, swear
it, — planted me here, where, by his grace, in this part of his Vine-
yard, I grow — ^I dare not say, but Satan and the world (one of his
pages, whom he sendeth his errands,) have said otherwise — and
here I will abide, till the great Master of the Vineyard tliink fit to
transplant me. But when he seeth meet to loose me at the root,
and to plant me where I may be more useful, both as to fruit and
shadow ; and when he who planted pulleth up that he may trans-
plant, who dare put-to their hand and hinder ? If they do, God
will break their arm at the shoulder-blade, and do his turn. When
our Lord is going west, the Devil and the world go east : and do
you not know, that it hath been ever this way betwixt God and
the world, God drawing and they holding; God, "yea," and the
world, "nay?" — but they fall on their back and are frustrated, and
our Lord holdeth his grip.'
Wherefore doth the word say, that our Christ, the Goodman
of this house, his dear Kirk, hath feet like fine brass, as if they
burned in a furnace? (Rev. i. 1.5.) For no other cause, but be-
cause w^here our Lord setteth down his brazen feet, he will for-
ward ; and whithersoever he looketh, he will follow his look ; and
his feet burn all under them, like as fire doth stubble and thorns.
I think that he hath now given the world a proof of his exceed-
ing great power, when he is doing such great things, wherein
Zion is concerned, by the sword of the Swedish king,^ as of a
Gideon.
As you love the glory of God, pray instantly, yea, engage all
your praying acquaintance, and take their faithful promise to do
the like for this king, and every one that Zion's King armeth to
execute the written vengeance on Babylon. Our Lord hath be-
gun to loose some of Babylon's corner stones : pray him to hold
on; for that city must fall, and the birds of the air and the beasts
of the earth must make a banquet of Babylon : for he hath invi-
ted them to eat the flesh of that whore, and to drink her blood ;
and the cup of the Lord's right-hand shall be turned unto her,
and shameful spuing shnll be upon her glory. He, whose word
must stand, hath said, "Take this cup at the hand of the Lord,
and drink, and be drunken, and spue and fall, and rise no more,"
(Jer. XXV. 27.)
I Gripe, ' Gustavus Adolphus.
94 Rutherford's letters.
Our Jesus is setting up himself as his Father's ensign, (Tsa. xi.
10,) as God's fair white colors, that his soldiers may flock about
him. Long, long may these colors stand ! It is long since, he
displayed a banner against Babylon, in the sight of men and
angels. Let us rejoice and triumph in our God, the victory is cer-
tain : for when Christ and Babel wrestle, then angels and saints
may prepare themselves to sing, "Babylon the great is fallen, is
fallen !" Howbeit that Prince of renown, precious Jesus, be now
weeping and bleeding in his members, yet Christ will laugh
again ; and it is time enough for us to laugh when our Lord
Chript laugheth — and that will be shortly. For when we hear of
wars and rumors of wars, the Judge's feet are then before the
door, and he must be in Heaven, giving order to the angels to
make themselves ready, and prepare their hooks ' and sickles for
that great harvest. Christ will be upon us in haste. Watch but
a little, and, ere long, the skies shall rend, and that fair lovely
Person, Jesus, will come in the clouds, fraughted^ and loaded
with glory ; and then all those knaves and foxes, that destroyed
the vines, shall call to the hills, and cry to the mountains to cover
them, and hide them from the face of Him, who sitteth upon the
throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
Remember me to your husband : and desire him from me to
help Christ, and to take his part, and in judgment to side ever
with him, and to receive a blow patiently for his sake ; for he is
worthy to be suffered for, not only to blows, but also to blood. He
will find, that innocency and uprightness in judgment shall hold
his feet, and make him happy, when jouking" will not do it. I
speak this, because a person said to me, "I pray God that the
country be not in worse case now, when the provost and baillies*
are agreed, than formerly :" to whom I replied, I trust the provost
is agreed with the man's person, l)ut not with his faults.
I pray for you with my whole soul, and desire that your children
may walk in the truth : and that the Lord may shine upon them,
and make their faces to shine when the faces of others shall blush.
I dare promise them, in His name, whose truth I preach, that if
they will but try God's service, they shall find him the sweetest
Master that ever they served. Desire them from me but to try
for a while the service of this blessed Master, and then if his ser-
vice be not sweet, if it afford not what is pleasant to the soul's
taste, change him, upon trial, and seek a better. Christ is an
unknown Christ to young ones, and, therefore, they seek him
not, because they know him not. Bid them come and see, and
seek a kiss of his mouth ; and then they will find his mouth is so
sweet; that they will be everlastingly chained unto him, by their
' Implompnts for reapinir. 2 Fraught.
^ To joxik sudilenly to inclinp the body forwards in order to avoid a blow; tneta-
phorically to shift ground in iiiMlters of principle in order to avoid some present evil;
hence the sarcnstic proverbial exhortation addressed to one who acts froai expediency,
" Jotik. an' let the jaw San"; ower."
* Magistrates in a Scottish burgh, analogous to the mayor and aldermen in an
English one.
Rutherford's letters. 95
own consent. If I have any credit with your children, I entreat
them in Christ's name to try what truth and reahty is in what I
say, and not to leave his service till they have found me a liar.
I give you, your husband, and them, to His keeping, to whom
I dare venture and have ventured myself and soul, even to our
dear Friend, Jesus Christ, in whom I am,
Yours, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XLIV.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — My dearest love in Christ remem-
bered to you — know that I am in great heaviness for the pitiful
case of our Lord's Kirk. I hear that the cause, why Dr. Burton
is committed to prison, is his writing and preaching against the Ar-
minians ; I, therefore, entreat the aid of your prayers for myself,
and the Lord's captives of hope, and for Zion. The Lord hath
let, and daily lettetli, me see clearly how deep furrows Arminian-
ism, and the followers of it shall draw upon the back of God's
Israel — but our Lord cutteth the cords of the wicked. (Isa. xlix.
14.) " But Zion said. The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord
hath forgotten me." (Lam. i. 2,) Zion " weepeth sore in the
night, and her tears are upon her cheeks ; amongst her lovers she
hath none to comfort her, all her friends have dealt treacherously
with her, and are become her enemies." (Isa. i. 22,) " Our silver
is become dross, our wine is mixed with water." (Lam. iv. 1,)
"How is the gold become dim? How is the most fine gold
changed? the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top
of every street." (Ver. 2,) " The precious sons of Zion, compara-
ble to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the
work of the hands of the potter !" It is time now for the Lord's
secret ones, who favor the dust of Zion, to cry, "How long, O
Lord?" and to go up to their watch-tower, and to stay there, and
not to come down, until the vision speak ; for it will speak, (Hab.
ii.) In the mean time, the "just shall live by his faith." Let us
wait on, and not weary. I have not a thread to hang upon and
rest, but this one, (Isa. xlix. 1.5,) " Can a woman forget her
sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of
her womb? yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee?"
(Ver. 16,) "Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my
hands, thy walls are continually before me:" for all outward
helps do fail. It is time, therefore, for us to hang ourselves, as
our Lord's vessels, upon the rail that is fastened in a sure place.
We would make stakes of our own fastening, but ihey will break.
Our Lord will have Sion on his own nail. Edom is busy within
u.-, and Babel without us, against the handful of Jacob's seed. It
96 Rutherford's letters.
were best that we were upon Christ's side of it, for his enemies
will get the stakes to keep, as the proverb is. Our greatest diffi-
culty will be, to win on upon the Rock now, when the wind and
waves of persecution are so lofty and proud. Let sweet Jesus
take us by the hand; neither must we think that it will be other-
wise, for it is told to the souls under the altar, (Rev. vi.,) that
their fellow-servants must be killed, as they were. Surely it can-
not be long till day. Nay, hear him say, " Behold, I come, my
dear Bride ; think not long,' I shall be at you at once ; I hear
you, and am coming." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come
quickly ; for the prisoners of hope are looking out at the prison-
windows, to see if they can behold the King's Ambassador com-
ing with the King's warrant, and the keys. I write not to you by
guess now, because I have a warrant to say unto you that the
garments of Christ's Spouse must be once again dyed in blood, as
long ago her Husband's was. Biftt our Father seeth his bleeding
Son. What I write unto you show to I. G.
Grace, grace, grace and mercy be with you, your husband, and
children. Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XLV.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved and Dear Sister in Christ, — I could
not get an answer written to your letter till now, in respect of my
wife's disease, and she is yet mightily pained. I hope that all
shall end in God's mercy. I know that an afflicted life looketh
very like the way that leadeth to the Kingdom ; for the Apostle
(Acts xiv. 22,) hath drawn the line, and the King's market-way,
through much tribulation, to the Kingdom. The Lord grant us
the whole armor of God.
Ye write to me concerning your people's disposition, how their
hearts are inclined toward the man ye know, and whom ye desire
most earnestly yourself He would most gladly have the Lord's
call for transplantation, for he knoweth that all God's plants, set
by his own hand, thrive well ; and if the work be of God, he can
make a stepping-stone of the Devil himself, for setting forward the
work. For yourself, I would advise you to ask of God a submis-
sive heart. Your reward shall be with the Lord. Although the
people be not gathered, as the prophet speaketh, and suppose the
word do not prosper, God shall account you a repairer of the
breaches. And take Christ caution ^ that ye shall not lose your
reward. Hold your grip^ fast. If ye knew the mind of the glori-
fied in Heaven — they think Heaven came to their hand at an
easy market, when they have got it for threescore or fourscore years'
1 Long not. 2 Security. ' Gripe.
Rutherford's letters. 97
wrestling- with God. When ye are come thither, ye shall think
that all which I did in respect of my rich reward, now enjoyed of
free grace, was too little. Now, then, for the love of the Prince of
your salvation, who is standing at the end of your way, holding
up in his liand the prize and the garland to the race-runners, for-
ward ! forward ! faint not ! Take as many to Heaven with you,
as ye are able to draw ; the moe ye draw with you, ye shall be
the welcomer yourself Be no niggard, or sparing churl of the
grace of God ; and employ all your endeavors for establishing an
honest ministry in your town, now when ye have so few to speak
a good word for you. I have many a grieved heart daily in my
calling : I would be undone, if I had not access to the King's
chamber-of-prescnce, to show him all the business. The Devil
rageth, and is mad to see the water drawn from his own mill ;
but would to God that we could be the Lord's instruments to build
the Son of God's house !
Pray for me. If the Lord furnish not new timber from Leba-
non, to build the house, the work will cease. I look to Him, who
hath begun well with me ; I have His hand-writ that He will not
change.
Your daughter is well, and longeth for a Bible. The Lord es-
tablish you in peace. The liord Jesus be with your Spirit.
Yours, at all power in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XLVI.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered — our communion is
on Sabbath come eight days. I will entreat you to recommend it
to God, and to pray for me in that work. I have more sins upon
me now than the last time ; therefore, I will beseech you, in Christ,
seek this petition to me from God, that the Lord would give me
grace to vow, and perform new obedience. I have cause to suit •
this of you, and show it to Thomas Carson, Fergus and Jean
Brown, for I have been, and am exceedingly cast down, and am
fighting against a malicious Devil, of whom I can win little
ground ; and I would think a spoil plucked from him and his
trusty servant, sin, a lawful and just conquest — and it were no sin
to take from him.
In the name of the Goodman of our house, King Jesus, I invite
you to the banquet ; He saith that ye shall be dearly welcome to
Him. And I desire to believe (howbeit not without great fear)
that He will be as hearty in His own house as He has been before.
For me it is but small reckoning ; but I would fain have our Fa-
ther and Lord to break the great fair Loaf, Christ, and to distrib-
' To urge a request.
7
98 Rutherford's letters.
ute His slain Son amongst the bairns of His house ; and that, if any
were a step-bairn in respect of comfort and sense, it were rather
myself than His poor bairns. Therefore, bid our Well-beloved
come to His garden, and feed among the lilies.
And as concerning Zion, I hope that our Lord, who (Zech. ii.,)
sent His angel with a measuring-Hne in his hand, to measure the
leno'th and breadth of Jerusalem, in token that He would not
want a foot length or inch of His own free heritage, will take order
with those who have taken away many acres of His own land
from Him; and that God will build Jerusalem in the old sted ' and
place where it was before. In this hope, rejoice, and be glad.
Christ's garment was not dipped in blood for nothing, but for His
Bride, whom he bought with strokes. I will desire you to remem-
ber my old suits to God, God's glory, and increase of light, that I
dry not up. For your town, hope and believe that the Lord will
gather in His loose sheaves among you to His barn, and send one
with a well-toOthed, sharp hook,'' and strong gardies, ^ to reap His
harvest. And the Lord Jesus, be Husbandman, and oversee the
growing !
Remember my love to your husband, and to Samuel. Grace
upon you, and your children. Lord make them corner-stones in
Jerusalem, and give them grace in their yoiUh to take band' with
the fair, chief Corner-stone, who was hewed out of the mountain,
without hands, and got many a knock with his Father's fore-ham-
mer. * and endured them all, and the Stone did neither cleave nor
break. — Upon that Stone your soul doth well to lie.
King Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Friend, in his well-beloved, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XLVH.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Much Honored and Dear Mistress, — My love in Christ
remembered — I am grieved at the heart to write anything to you,
to breed heaviness to you ; and what I have written, I wrote.it
with much heaviness. But I entreat you in Christ's name, when
my soul is under wrestlings, and seeking direction from our Lord,
(to whom this Vineyard belongeth,) whither I shall go, give me
liberty to advise, and try all airts* and paths, to see whether He
goeth before me and leadeth nie ; for if I were assured of God's
call to your town, let my arm fall from my siiouUler-blade and
lose power, and my right eye be dried up, which is the judgment
of the idol shepherd, (Zech. xi. 17,) if I would not swim through
1 Site. 2 Sickle. 3 The arms.
* To take band with, to unite with, as the mortar does to the stones in n building.
• Sledge-hammer. * Quarters, points of the compass.
Rutherford's letters. 99
the water without a boat, ere I sat his bidding. ' But, if ye knew
my doubtings and fears in that, ye would suffer with me. Whether
they be temptations, or impediments cast in by God, I know not.
But ye have now cause to thank God ; for, seeing the Bishop hath
given you such a promise, he will give you an honest man, more
willingly than he will permit me to come to you. And, as I ever
entreated you, put the business out of your hand into the Lord's
reverence ; and try of him, if ye have warrant of him, to seek no
man in the world, but one only when there are choice of good men
to be had — howbeit they be too scarce, yet they are. And what
Gad saith to me in the business, I resolve, by his grace, to do ;
for I know not what he will do with me, but God will fill you
with joy ere the business be ended ; for I persuade myself that our
Lord Jesus hatli stirred you up already to do good in the business,
and ye shall not lose your reward.
I have heard that your husband, and Samuel have been sick.
The Man who is called the Branch and God's Fellow, and stand-
eth before His Father, will be your stay and help, (Zech. xiii. 7.)
I would that I were able to comfort your soul ; but have patience
and stand, still he that believeth maketh not haste.
This matter of Crammond,cast in at this time, is either a temp-
tation, having fallen out at this time, or then° it will clear all my
doubts, and let you see the Lord's will. But I never knew my
own part in the business till now; I thought I was more willing to
have embraced the charge in your town than I am, or am able to
win to.' I know that ye pray that God would resolve me what
to do ; and will interpret me as love biddeth you, which thinketh
not ill, and believeth all things, and hopeth all things. Would
ye have more than the Son of God ? and ye have Him already,
and ye shall be fed by the carver of the meat, be that who he will ;
and those who are hungry, look more to the meat than to the
carver.
I cannot see you the next week. If my Lady come home, I
must visit her. The week thereafter there will be a presbytery at
Girthon ; God will dispose of the meeting.
Grace upon you, and your seed, and husband. The Lord Jesus
be with your spirit.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XLVni.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Worthy and Well-beloved Mistress, — My love in Cluist
remembered — I have sent you a letter from Mr. David Dickson,
' To sit ones bidding, not promptly to do what has been cornmaiided.
2 Otherwise. ^ Altuin to.
100 Rutherford's letters.
concerning the placing of Mr. Hugh MacKail with themselves ;
therefore, I write to you now only to entreat you in Christ not to
be discouraged thereat. Be submissive to the will of your dear
Lord, who knoweth best what is good for your soul and your town
Doth : for God can come over greater mountains than these, we
believe ; for he worketh his greatest works contrary to carnal
reason and means. " My ways are not." saith our Lord, " as
your ways ; neither are my thoughts as your thoughts." (Isaiah
Iv.) I am no whit put from ray belief for all that :— believe, pray,
and use means.
We shall cause Mr. John Ker, who convoyed myself to Lochin-
var, to use means to seek a man, if Mr. Hugh fail us. Our Lord
hath a little bride among you, and I trust he will send one to woo
her to our sweet Lord Jesus. He will not want his wife for the
suiting ; ' and he hath means in abundance in his hand to open
all the slots- and bars that Satan draweth over the door. He
Cometh to his bride leaping over the mountains, and skipping over
the hills. His way to his spouse is full of stones, mountains, and
waters ; yet he putteth in his foot, and wadeth through ; he will
not want her ; and, therefore, refresh me with two words, concern-
ing your confidence and courage in our Lord, both about that, and
about his own Zion ; for he wooeth his wife in the burning bush :
and for the good-will of Him that dwelleth in the bush, the bush
is not consumed. It is better to weep with Jerusalem in the fore-
noon, than to weep with Babel after noon, in the end of the day.
Our day of laugliter and rejoicing is coming ; yet a little while,
and ye shall see the salvation of God.
I long to see you and to hear how your children are, especially
Samuel. Grace be their heritage, and portion from the Lord ; and
the Lord be their lot, and then their inheritance shall please them
well.
Remember ray love to your husband. — The Lord Jesus be with
your spirit. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XLIX.
FOR MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — My love in Jesus Christ remembered
— your daughter is well, thanks be to God ; I trust in him that ye
shall have joy of her. The Lord bless her. I am now presently
going about catechizing.
The bearer is in haste. Forget not poor Zion, and the Lord
remember you, for we shall be shortly winnowed. Jesus, pray for
1 Courting.
2 A slot is a strong movable bolt or bar, which is drawn out of a socket on the
side of a door till the end enters into a socket on the other side of the door, and thus
the door is secured by each end of the slot resting in a socket in the wall. In this
manner were the gates of the ancient Scottish keeps and strong-holds secured.
Rutherford's letters. * 101
us, that ouv faith fail not. I would wish to see you a Sabbath with
us, and we shall stir up one another, God willing, to seek the
Lord ; for it may be that he hide himself from us ere it be long.
Keep that which you have, ye will get more in Heaven. The
Lord send us to the shore out of all the storms, with our silly souls
whole and sound with us ; for if liberty of conscience come, as is
rumored, the best of us all will be put to our wits to seek how to
be freed. But we shall be with those who have their chamber to
go in unto, spoken of, (Isa. xxvi. 20.) Read the place yourself,
and keep you within your house whill the storm be past. If you
can learn a dittay' against C, try, and cause to try, that we may
see the liOrd's righteous judgment upon the Devil's instruments.
We are not much obliged to his kindness ; I wish that all such
wicked doers were cat off.
These in haste ; I bless you in God's name, and all yours.
Your daughter desireth a Bible and a gown. I hope that she will
use the Bible well, which, if she do, the gown is the better be-
stowed.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, forever, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER L.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Mistress, — My love in Jesus Christ remembered — I am in good
health, honor to my Lord ; but my wife's disease increaseth daily,
to her great torment and pain night and day. She hath not been
in God's house since our communion, neither out of her bed. I
have hired a man to Edinburgh, to Dr. Jeally, and to John Ham-
ilton : I can hardly believe her disease is ordinary, for her life is
bitter to her. She sleepeth none, but crieth, as a woman travail-
ing in birth ; what will be the event He that hath the keys of the
grave knoweth. I have been many times since I saw you, that I
have besought the Lord to loose her out of the body, and to take
her to her rest. I believe that the Lord's tide of afflictions will
ebb again ; but at present I am exercised with the wrestlings of
God, being afraid of nothing more than this, that God hath let
loose the Tempter upon my house. God rebuke him and his in-
strument. Because Satan is not cast out but by fasting and prayer,
I entreat you to remember our estate to our Lord, and entreat all
good Christians, whom ye know, but especially your Pastor, to do
the same. It becometh us still to knock, and to lie at the Lord's
door, whill we die knocking. If he will not open, it is more than
he hath said in his word ; but he is faithful. 1 look not to win
away to my home without wounds, and blood. Welcome, wel-
I Ground of indictment.
102 Rutherford's letters.
come cross of Christ, if Christ be with it ! I have not a calm
spirit in the work of my caiUng here, being daily chastised; yet
God hath not put out my candle, as he doth to the wicked.
Grace, grace be with you and all yours.
Yours, in his Lord, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER LL
for MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Worthy and Well-beloved Mistress, — My love in Christ
remembered — I know that ye have heard of the purpose of my
adversaries, to try what they can do against me at this synod, for
the work of God in your town, when 1 was at your communion.
They intend to call me in question at the synod, for treasonable
doctrine ; therefore, help me with your prayers, and desire your
acquaintance to help me also. Your ears heard how Christ was
there. If he suffer his servant to get a broken head, in his own
kingly service, and not either help or revenge the wrong, I never
saw the like of it. There is not a night-drunkard, time-serving,
idle idol-shepherd to be spoken against — I am the only man : and
because it is so, and I know that God will not help them, lest they
be proud, I am confident that their process shall fall asunder.
Only be ye earnest with God for hearing, for an open ear, and
reading of the bill, that he may in Heaven hear both parties, and
judge accordingly : and doubt not, fear not, that they shall not,
who now ride highest, put Christ out of his kingly possession in
Scotland. The pride of man, and his rage, shall turn to the
praise of our Lord. It is an old feud, that the rulers of the earth,
the Dragon and his angels, have carried to the Lamb and his fol-
lowers ; but the followers of the Lamb shall overcome by the word
of God : and believe this, and wait on a little, till they have got
their womb-ful' of clay and gravel, and they shall know, (how-
beit stolen waters be sweet,) that Esau's portion is not worth his
hunting.
Commend me to your husband, and send me word how Grizzel
is. The Son of God lead her through the water.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER LIL
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered — at the desire of
1 Belly-full.
Rutherford's letters. 103
this bearer, whom 1 love, I thought to request you, if ye can help
his wife with your advice, for she is in a most dangerous and
deadly-like condition ; for I have thought that she was far changed
in her carriage and hfe this sometime by-passed, and had hoped
that God would have brought her home ; and now, by appear-
ance, she will depart this life, and leave a number of children be-
hind her. If ye can be entreated to help her, it is a work of mercy.
My own wife is in exceeding great torment, night and day. Pray
for us, for my life was never so wearisome to me. God hath filled
me with gall and wormwood ; but I believe, which holdeth my
head above the water. " It is good for a man," saith the Spirit of
God, (Lam. iii..) " that he bear the yoke in his youth."
I do remember you. I pray you be humble and believe ; and I
entreat you in Jesus Christ, pray for John Stuart and his wife, and
desire your husband to do the same. Remember me heartily to
Jean Brown. Desire her to pray for me and my wife : I do re-
member her. Forget not Zion ! Grace, grace and peace, upon
them that pray for Zion ! She is the ship we sail in to Canaan ;
if she broken on a rock, we shall be cast overboard, to swim to land
betwixt death and life.
The grace of Jesus be with your husband, and children.
Yours, in our Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER LIII.
TO EARLSTON, ELDER,
Much Honored Sir, — I have heard of the mind and malice
of your adversaries against you. It is like that they will extend
the law which they have, in length and breadth, answerable to
their heat of mind ; but it is a great part of your glory, that the
cause is not yours, but your Lord's whom ye serve ; and I doubt
not but Christ will count it his honor to back his weak servant, —
and it were a shame for him, with reverence to his holy name,
that he should suffer himself to be in the common of such a poor
man as ye are, and that ye should give out for him, and not get
in again. Write up your depursements- for your Master, Christ,
and keep count of what ye give out, whether name, credit, goods,
or life, and suspend your reckoning till nigh the evening; and
remember that a poor weak servant of Christ wrote it to you, that ye
shall liave Christ, a King, caution ^ for your incomes and all your
losses. Reckon not from the forenoon. Take the word of God
for your warrant, and for Christ's act of cautionry,^ howbeit body,
life and goods go for Christ your Lord, and though ye should lose
the head for him ; yet, (Luke xxi. 18,) there shall not one hair of
' Under obligation to. 2 Disbursements.
3 Security. ■* Suretyship.
104 Rutherford's letters.
your head perish, (ver. 19,) in patience, therefore, possess your
soul. And because ye are the first man in Galloway called out
and questioned for the name of Jesus, his eye hath been uponj'ou,
as upon one whom he designed to be among his witnesses. Christ
hath said, "Alexander Gordon shall lead the ring, in witnessing a
good confession;" and, therefore, he hath put the garland of suf-
fering for himself, first upon your head. Think yourself so much
the more obliged to him, and fear not ; for he layelli his right
hand on your head. He who was dead and is alive, will plead
your cause, and will look attentively upon the process from the
beginning to the end; and the spirit of glory shall rest upon you,
(Rev. ii. 10.) "' Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer;
behold, the Devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may
be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful
unto death, and I will give thee the cro\vn of life." That lovely
One, Jesus, who also became the Son of man, that he might take
strokes for you, write the cross-sweetening and soul-supporting
sense of these words in your heart.
These rumbling wheels of Scotland's ten-days' tribulation are
under His look, who' hath seven eyes. Take a house on your
head, and slip yourself by faith under Christ's wings, tiU the storm
be over. And remember that when they have drunk us down,
Jerusalem will be a cup of trembling and of poison, (Zech. xii. 2.)
They shall be fain to vomit out the saints ; for Judah, (ver. 6,)
shall be an hearth of fire in a sheaf, and they shall devour all the
people round about, on the right hand and on the left. Wo to the
enemies of Zion. They have the worst of it: for we have writ'
for the victory.
Sir, ye were never so honorable as ye are now. This is your
glory, that Christ hath put you into the roll with himself, and the
rest of the witnesses, who are come out of great tribulation, and
have washed their garments, and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb. Be not cast down for what the servants of Anti-
christ cast in your teeth, that ye are a head to, and favorer of the
Puritans, and leader to that sect. If your conscience say, "Alas,
here is much din and little done," (as the proverb is,) because ye
have not done so much service to Christ that way as ye might and
should, take courage from that same temptation; for your Lord,
Christ, looketh upon that very challenge,^ as a hungering desire in
you to have done more than ye did ; and that fiUeth up the blank,
and he will accept of what ye have done in that kind. If great
men be kind to you, I pray you to overlook' them: if they smile
on you, Christ but borroweth their face, to smile through them
upon his afilicted servant. Know the well-head ; and for all that,
learn the way to the well itself.
Thank God that Christ came to your house in your absence,
and took with him some of your children, lie presumed that
much on your love, that ye would not be offended ; and howbeit
» Writing under the liand. 2 Accusation, 3 Look over.
Rutherford's letters. 105
he should take the rest, he cannot come upon your wrong side. I
question not, if they were children of gold, but ye would think them
well bestowed upon him.
Expound well these two rods on you, one on your house at
home, another on your own person abroad. Love thinketh no
evil; if ye were not Christ's wheat, appointed to be bread in his
house, he would not grind you. But keep the middle line, neither
despise nor faint, (Heb. xii. (3.) Ye see that your Father is homely '
with you. Strokes of a father evidence kindness and care — take
them so. I hope that your Lord hath manifested himself to you,
and suggested these or more choice thoughts about his dealing
with you. We are using our weak moyen^ and credit for you up
at our own court, as we dow ; * we pray the King to hear us, and
the Son of Man to go side for side with you, and hand in hand, in
the fiery oven, and to quicken and encourage your unbelieving
heart, when ye droop and despond.
Sir, to the honor of Christ be it said, that my faith goeth with
my pen now. I am presently believing that Christ will bring you
out. Truth in Scotland shall keep the crown of the causeway *
yet. The saints shall see religion go naked at noon-day, free
from shame and fear of men. We shall divide Shechem, and ride
upon the high places of Jacob.
Remember my obliged respects and love to my Lady Kenmure
and her sweet child.
Yours ever, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, July 6, 1G3G.
LETTER LIV.
FOR MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Well-beloved Mistress, — I charge you, in tlie name of
the Son of God, to rest upon your Rock, that is higher than your-
self; be not afraid of a man who is a worm, nor for the son of
man who shall die ; let God be your fear. Encourage your hus-
band. I would counsel you to write to Edinburgh to some advis-
ed lawyers, to understand what your husband, as the head-
magistrate, may do, in opposing any intruded minister, and as to
his carriage toward the new Prelate, if he command him to im-
prison or lay hands upon any, and. in a word, how far he may in
his office disobey a prelate, without, danger of law: for if the
Bishop come to your town, and find not obedience to his heart, it
is like that he will coiumand the provost to assist him against God
and the truth — ^ye will have more courage under the peisecution.
Fear not ; take Christ caution,5 who said, (Luke xxi. 18,) "There
1 Familiar. 2 Interest. 3 Are able.
< 7'o keep the crown of tjie causeway, to appear in public without either shame or fear.
5 Security.
106 Rutherford's letters.
shall not one hair of your head perish." Christ will not be in
your common/ to have you giving out anything for him, and
not give you all incomes, with advantage. It is his honor that
his servants should not be berried ^ and undone in his service.
Ye were never honored till now. And if your husband be the first
magistrate who shall suffer for Christ's name in this persecution,
he may rejoice that Christ hath put the first garland upon his
head, and upon yours. Truth will yet keep the crown of the '
causeway in Scotland. Christ and truth are strong enough.
They judge us now ; we shall one day judge them, and sit on
twelve thrones, and judge the Twelve Tribes. Believe, believe ;
for they dare not pray, they dare not look Christ in the face.
They have been false to Christ, and he will not sit with ^ the
wrong. Ye know, that it is not our cause ; for if we would quit
our Lord, we might sleep, for the present, in a sound skin, and
keep our place, means and honor, and be dear to them also. But
let us once put all we have over into Christ's hands.
Fear not for my papers, I shall dispatch them ; but ye will be
examined for them. The Spirit of Jesus give you inward peace.
Desire your husband, from me, to prove honest to Christ; he shall
not be a loser at Christ's hand.
Yours, ever, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, July 8, 1635.
LETTER LV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE,
Madam^ — I cannot find a time for writing some things which
I intended on Job, I have been so taken up with the broils that
we are encumbered with in our calHng : for our Prelate will have
us either to swallow our light over, and digest it, contrary to our
stomachs, howbeit we should vomit our conscience and all, in this
troublesome Conformity ; or then'' lie will try if deprivation can
convert us to the ceremonial faith.
I write to your Ladyship, madam, not as distrusting your affec-
tion, or wilUngness to help me, as your Ladyship is able by your-
self, or others, but to advertise you, that I hang by a small thread.
For our learned Prelate, because we cannot see with his eyes so
far into a millstone as his light doth, will not follow liis Master,
meek Jesus, who waited upon the wearied and short-breathed in
the way to Heaven, — and where all see not alike, and some are
weaker, he carrieth the lambs in his bosom, and leadeth gently
those that are with young, — but we must either see all the evil
of ceremonies to be but as indifferent straws, or suffer no less than
to be castcn out of the Lord's inheritance.
1 Under obligation to you. 2 PjUaged, ruined by extortion or severe exacliona.
3 To sit with, to bear with in silence. * Otherwise.
RUTHERFORDS LETTERS
'a LETTERS. 107
Madam, if I had time I would write more at length ; but your
Ladyship will pardon me, till a fitter occasion. Grace be with
you, and your cliild, and bear you company to your best home.
Your Ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 8, 1636.
LETTER LVL
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I received your Ladyship's letter from J. Gordon. I
thank our Lord, that ye are as well, at least, as one may be, who
is not come home. It is a mercy, in this stormy sea, to get a
second wind ; for none of the saints get a first, but they must take
the winds as the Lord of the seas causeth them to blow; and the
inn, as the Lord and Master of the inns hath ordered it. If con-
tentment were here. Heaven were not heaven. Wlioever seek
the world to be their bed, shall at best find it sliort and ill made,
and a stone under their side to hold them waking, rather than a
soft pillow to sleep upon. Ye ought to bless your Lord that it is
not worse : we live in a sea where many have suffered shipwreck,
and have need that Christ sit at the helm of the ship. It is a
mercy to win to Heaven, though with much hard toil and heavy
labor and to take it by violence, ill and well as it may be. Better
go swimming and wet through our wafers, than drown by the
way ; especially now when truth sufTereth, and great men bid
Christ sit lower, and contract himself into less bounds, as if he
took too much room.
I expect that our new Prelate will try my sitting. I hang by a
thread, but it is (if I may speak so) of Christ's spinning. There
is no quarrel more honest or honorable than to suffer for truth ;
but the worst is, that this Kuk is like to sink, and all her lovers
and friends stand afar off"; none mourn with her, and none mourn
for her. But the liOrd Jesus will not be put out of his conquest'
so soon in Scotland. It will be seen, that the Kirk and truth
shall rise again within three days, and Christ again will ride upon
his white horse — howbeit his horse seem now to stumble, yet he
cannot fall. The fulness of Christ's harvest in the end of the
earth is not yet come in. I speak not tiiis, because I would have
it so, but upon better grounds than my naked liking. But enough
of this sad subject.
I long to be fully assured of your Ladyship's welfare, and that
your soul prospereth, especially now in yom- solitary life, when
your comforts outward are few, and when Christ hath you for the
very uptaking. I know that his love to you is still running over ;
and his love hath not so bad a memory as to forget you and your
dear child, who hath two fatliers in Heaven, the one the Ancient
1 Acquisition by inheritance or purchase.
108 Rutherford's letters.
of days. I trust in his mercy, that he iiath something laid up for
him above, however it may go with him here. I know that it is
long since your Ladyship saw that tliis world had turned your
step-mother, and had forsaken you. Madam, ye have reason to
take in good part a lean dinner and spare diet in this life, seeing
your large supper of the Lamb's preparing Avill recompense all.
Let it go which was never yours, but only in sight, not in proper-
ty : the time of your loan will wear shorter and shorter, and time
is measurefd to you by ounce-weights : and then I know that your
hope shall be a full ear of corn, and not blasted with wind. It
may be your joy, that your anchor is up within the veil, and that
the ground it is cast upon is not false, but firm. God hath done
his part : and I hope that ye will not deny to fish and fetch home
all your love to himself; and it is but too narrow and short for
him, if it were more. If ye were before pouring all your love (if
it had been many gallons more) in upon your Lord, if drops fell
by ' in the in-pouring, he forgiveth you ; he hath done now all
that can be done, to win beyond it all, and hath left little to woo
your love from himself, except one only child. What is his pur-
pose herein. He knoweth best, who hath taken your soul in tutor-
ing. Your faith may be boldly charitable of Christ, that, how-
ever matters go, the worst shall be a tired traveller, and a
joyful and a sweet welcome-home. The back of your winter
night is broken." Look to the east, the day sky is breaking ;
think not that Christ loseth time, or lingereth unsuitably. O fair,
fair and sweet morning! We are but as sea-passengers; if we
look right we are upon our country coast. Our Redeemer is
fast coming, to take this old worm-eaten world, like an old moth-
eaten garment, in his two hands, and to roll it up, and lay it by'
him. These are the last days, and an oath is given, (Rev. x. 6,)
by God himself, that time shall be no more : and when time itself
is old and gray-haired, it were good we were away.
Thus, madam, ye see I am, as my custom is, tedious in my
lines. Your Ladyship will pardon it.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, January 18, 163S.
LETTER LVII.
for MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — My love in Christ remembered— I
hear of good news anent our Kirk, but I fear that our King will
not be resisted, and, therefore, let us not be secure and careless.
I do wonder if this Kirk come not through our Lord's fan, since
there is so much chalF in it howbeit ; I persuade myself that the
' Past. 2 That is, more tlian half spent. 3 Past, beside.
Rutherford's letters. 109
Son of God's wheat shall not be blown away. Let us be putting
on God's armor, and be strong in the Lord. If the Devil, and
Zion's enemies, strike a hole in that armor, let our Lord see to
that ; let us put it on, and stand ; we have Jesus on our side, and
they are not worthy of such a Captain, who Vv'ould not take a blow
at his back. We are in sight of his colors ; his banner over us is
love : look up to that white banner, and stand : I persuade you,
in the Lord, of victory.
My brother writeth to me of your heaviness, and of temptations
that press you sore. I am content it be so. You bear about with
you the marks of the Lord Jesus : so was it with our Lord's Apostle,
when he was to come, with the Gospel, to Macedonia, (2 Cor.
vii. 5,) his flesh had no rest, he was troubled on every side, and
knew not wliat side to turn him unto ; without were fightings,
and within were fears. In the great work of our redemption,
your lovely, beautiful, and glorious Friend and Well-beloved,
Jesus, was brought to tears and strong cries, so as his face was
wet with tears and blood, arising from a holy fear, and the weiglit
of the curse. Take a drink of the Son of God's cup, and love it
the better that he drank of it before you — there is no poison in it.
I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad
heart, considering what their Lord is preparing for them.
Is your mind troubled anent that business, which we have in
hand in Edinburgh ? I trust in my Lord, that the Lord will in
the end give to you your heart's desire, even, howbeit, the business
frame not. The Lord will feed your soul, and all the hungry
souls in that town ; therefore, I request you in the Lord to pray
for a submissive will ; and pray, as your Lord Jesus biddeth you,
" Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven !" And, let it be that
your faith be brangled ' with temptations : believe ye that there is a
tree in our Lord's garden that is not often shaken with the wind
from all the four airts ?° — surely there is none. Rebuke your soul,
as the Lord's prophet doth, (Psalm xlii.,) " Why art thou cast down,
O my soul ! why art thou disquieted within me ?" That was the
word of a man, who was at the very overgoing of the brae^ and
mountain; but God held a grip ^ of him. Swim through your
temptations and troubles, to be at that lovely amiable Person,
Jesus, to whom your soul is dear. In your temptations, run to the
promises ; they be our Lord's branches hanging over the water,
that our Lord's silly Mialf-drowned children may take a grip of
them ; if you let that grip go, you will go to the ground."
Are ye troubled with the case of God's Kirk ? Our Lord will
evermore have her betwixt the sinking and the swimming : he
will have her going through a thousand deaths, and through hell,
as a cripple' woman, halting, and wanting the power of her own
side, (Micah iv. 6, 7,) that God may be her staff. That broken
ship will come to land, because Jesus is the pilot. Faint not, you
* Shaken, thrown into disorder. ^ Quarters. 3 Precipice.
* Gripe, grasp, 6 Poor, in the sense of exciting compassion,
s Bottom. ' Lame.
110 Rutherford's letters.
shall see the salvation of God ; else say that God never spake His
word by iny mouth, and I had rather never have been born, ere it
were so with me— but my Lord hatli sealed me.
I dare not deny, that 1 have, also, been in heaviness since I
came from you, fearing, for my unthankfulness, that I am de-
serted ; but the Lord will be kind to me, whether I will or not.
I repose that' much in his grace that he will be loath to change
upon me. As you love me. pray for me in this particular.
After advising with Carlton, I have written to Mr. David Dick-
son, anent Mr. Hugh Mackail, and desired him to write his mind
to Carlton, and Carlton to Edinburgh, that they may particularly
remember Mr. Hugh to the Lord ; and I happened upon a conve-
nient trusty bearer, by God's wonderful providence.
No further. I recommend you to the Lord's grace, and your
husband and children.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Edinburgh.
A POSTSCRIPT.
Mistress, — I had not time to give my advice to your daughter
Grizzel ; you shall carry my words, therefore, to her. Show her
now, that, in respect of lier tender age, she is, in a manner, as clean
paper, ready to receive either good or ill ; and that it were a
sweet and glorious thing for her to give herself up to Christ, that
He may write upon her His Father's name, and His own new
name. And desire her to acquaint herself with the Book of
God ; the promises that our Lord writeth upon His own, and per-
formeth in them, and for them, are contained there. I persuade
you, that, when she is in the company of such parents, and hath
occasion to learn Christ, I think Christ is wooing her soul ; and I
pray God that she may not refuse such a Husband. And, therefore,
I charge her, and beseech her, by the mercies of God, by the wounds
and blood of Him who died for her, by the word of truth, which
she heareth and can read, by the coming of the Son of God to
judge the world, that she would fulfil your joy, and learn Christ,
and walk in Cluist. She will think this the truth of God many
years after this ; and I shall promise to myself in respect of the
beginnings that I have seen, that she will give herself to Him
who gave Hiniself for her. Let her begin at prayer ; for if she re-
member her Creator in the days of her youth. He will claim kind-
ness to her in her old age. It shall be a part of my prayers, that
this may be effectuated in her, by Him, who is able to do exceed-
ingly abundantly ; to whose grace I again recommend you, and
her, and all yours.
»So.
Rutherford's letters. IH
LETTER LVIII.
for MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — I know that ye have heard of the
success of our business in Edinburgh. I do every presbytery-day
see the faces of my brethren smihng upon me, but their tongues
convey reproaches and Hes of me a hundred miles off, and have
made me odious to the Bishop of St. Andrew's, who said to Mr.
William Dalgleish, that ministers in Galloway were his informers;
whereupon no letters of favor could be procured from him for effect-
uating of our business : only I am brought into the mouths of men,
who, otherwise, knew me not, and have power (if God will permit)
to harm me ; yet I entreat you in the bowels of Christ Jesus, be not
cast down. I fear that your sorrow exceed because of this ; and
I am not so careful of myself in the matter as for you. Take
courage ; your dearest Lord will light your candle, which the
wicked would fain blow out ; and as sure as our Lord liveth your
soul shall find joy and comfort in this business ; howbeit ye see
all the hounds in Hell let loose to mar it. Their iron chains to
our dear and mighty Lord are but straws, which he can easily
break, liet not this temptation stick in your throat ; swallow it,
and let it go down — our Lord give you a drink of the consolations
of His Spirit, that it may digest. Ye never knew one in God's
Book who put their hand to the Lord's work for his Kirk, but the
world, and Satan, did bark against them, and bite also, where
they had power. Ye will not lay one stone on Zion's wall but
they will labor to cast it dowii again.
And for myself, the Lord letteth me see now greater evidences
of a calling to I^irkcudbright than ever he did before ; and, there-
fore, pray, and possess your soul in patience. Those that were
doers in the business have good hopes that it will yet go forward,
and prosper.
As for the death of the King of Sweden, (which is thought to be
too true,) we can do nothing else but reverence our Lord, who
doth not ordinarily hold Zion on her rock by the sword and arm
of flesh and blood, but by his own might and out-stretched arm.
Her King, that leigneth in Zion, yet liveth, and they are plucking
liim round about to pull him off his throne; but his Father hath
crowned him, and who dare say "It is ill done?" The Lord's
Bride will be up and down, above the water swimming, and under
the water sinking, until her lovely and mighty Redeemer and
Husband set his head through these skies, and come, with his fair
court, to red all their pleas,' and give them the hoped-for inheri-
tance— and then, we shall lay down our swords, and triumph, and
fight no more. But do not think, for all this, that our Lord and
chief Shepherd will want one weak sheep, or the silliest dying
' Settle all their cfisputes.
112' Rutherford's letters.
lamb he hath redeemed. He will tell his flock, and gather tliem
all together, and make a faithful account of them to his Father,
who gave them to him. Let vis now learn to turn our eyes off
men, that our whorish hearts dote not on them, and woo our old
Husband and make him our darling; for (Jer. xxv. 27,) tlius saith
the Lord to the enemies of Zion, "Drink ye and be drunk, and
spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword that I send
amongst you." (Ver. 28.) " And it shall be, if they refuse to take
the cup at thy hand to drink, then shalt thou say to them, Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, Ye shall certainly drink."
You see our Lord brewing a cup of poison for his enemies,
which they must drink, and because of this have sore bowels and
sick stomachs, yea, burst. But, (Jer. 1. 4,) when Zion's captivity
is at an end, " the Children of Israel shall come, they and the
Children of Judah, together, going and w^ecping ; they shall go,
and seek the Lord their God." (Ver. 5,) " They shall ask the way
to Zion, with their faces thitherward, saying. Come and let us join
ourselves to the Lord, in an everlasting covenant that shall not be
forgotten." This is spoken to us, and for us, who, with wo ' liearts,
ask, "What is the way to Zion?" It is our^part, who know how
to go to our Lord's door, and to knock by prayer, and how to lift
Christ's slot,'^ and shute ' the bar of his chamber door, to complain,
and tell him how the world handleth us, and how our King's
business goeth, that he may get up and lend^ them a blow, who
are tigging^ and playing with Christ, and his spouse.
Ye have also, dear mistress, house troubles, in sickness of your
husband and bairns, and in spoiling of your house by thieves.
Take these rods in patience, from your Lord : he must still move
you from vessel to vessel, and grind you as our Lord's wheat, to
be bread in his house ; but when all these strokes are over your
head,® what will you say to see your well-beloi^ed Christ's white
and ruddy face, even His face, who is worthy to bear the colors
amongst ten thousand, (Cant, v.) Hope and believe to the end.
Grace, for evermore, be multiplied upon you, your husband, and
children.
Your own, in his dearest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh.
LETTER LIX.
TO MARION MACKNAUGHT.
My Dear, and Well-beloved in Christ, — I am yet under
trial, and have appeared before Christ's forbidden Lords'' for a tes-
timony against them. The Chancellor and the rest tempted me
' Grieved.
2 A strong bar, running from side to side of a door, and having the ends entering
into sockets in the wall. 3 Push aside. * Give.
5 Toying. « Passed and gone. f The prelates, 1 Pet. v. 3.
Rutherford's letters. 113
with questions nothing belonging to my summons, which I wholly
declined, notwithstanding his threats. My newly-printed book
against the Arminians was one challenge,' not lording'-^ the pre-
lates another: the most part of the bishops, when I came in,
looked more astonished than I, and heard me with silence. Some
spoke for me ; but my Lord ruled it so, as I am filled with joy in
my sufferings, and I find Christ's cross sweet. What they intend
the next day, I know not. Be not secure, but pray. Our Bishop
of Galloway said, if the Commission would not give him his will
of me, with an oath, he said, that he would write to the King.
The Chancellor summoned me in judgment, to appear that day
eight days. My Lord has brought me a friend from the High-
lands of Argyll, my Lord of Lorn,^ who hath done as much as was
within the compass of his power. God gave me favor in his eyes.
Mr. Robert Glendonning is silenced, till he accept a colleague.
We hope to deal yet for him. Christ is worthy to be intrusted.
Your husband will get an easy and good way of his business.
Ye and I both shall see the salvation of God upon Joseph, sepa-
rated from his brethren.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in Christ, S." R.
Edinburgh.
LETTER LX.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGIJT.
Honored, and Dearest in the Lord, — Grace, mercy and
peace be to you. — I am well, and my soul prospereth. I find
Christ with me. I burden no man: I want nothing: no face
looketh on me but it laugheth on me. Sweet, sweet is the Lord's
cross. I overcome my heaviness. My Bridegroom's love-blinks*
fatten my weary soul. I go to my King's palace at Aberdeen.
Tongue, and pen, and wit cannot express my joy.
Remember my love to Jean Gordon, to ray sister, Jean Brown,
to Grizzel, to your husband.
Thus in haste. Grace be with you.
Yours, iai his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, April 5, 1G3G.
A POSTSCRIPT.
My charge is to you to believe, rejoice, sing and triumph.
Christ has said to me, " Mercy, mercy, grace and peace, for Ma-
rion Macknaught."
' Accusation. 2 Giving the title " lord."
3 Archibald Campbell, afterwards Marquis of Argyll, and martyr for the Word of
God, and Scotland's covenanted Work of Reformation. * Love-elances.
8-
114 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER LXI.
TO THE TRULY NOBLE, AND ELECT LADY, MY LADY VIS-
COUNTESS OF KENMURE.
Noble, and Elect Lady, — That honor that I have prayed
for these sixteen years, with submission to my Lord's will, my
kind Lord hath now bestowed upon me ; even to suffer for my
royal and princely King, Jesus, and for his Kingly crown, and the
freedom of his Kingdom, that his Father hath given him. The
forbidden lords' have sentenced me with deprivation and confine-
ment within the town of Aberdeen. I am charged in the Kinsr's
name, to enter against the twentieth day of August next, and
there to remain during the King's pleasure, as they have given it
out. Howbeit Christ's green cross, newly laid upon me, be some-
what heavy, while I call to mind the many fair days, sweet and
comfortable to my soul, and to the souls of many others, and how
young ones in Christ are plucked from the breast, and the inheri-
tance of God laid waste; yet that sweet-smelled and perfumed
cross of Christ is accompanied with sweet refreshment, with the
kisses of a King, with the joy of the Holy Ghost, with faith that
the Lord heareth the sighing of a prisoner, with undoubted hope,
(as sure as my Lord liveth,) after this night to see day-light, and
Christ's sky to clear up again upon ma, and his poor Kirk, and
that in a strange land, amongst strange faces. He will give favor
in the eyes of men to his poor oppressed servant, who dow not*
but love that lovely One, that princely One, Jesus, the Comforter
of his soul. All would be well, if I were free of old challenges ' for
guiltiness, and for neglect in my calling, and for speaking too lit-
tle for my Well-beloved's crown, honor, and Kingdom. Oh, for a
day in the assembly of the saints to advocate for King Jesus ! If
my Lord go on now to quarrels, also, I die, I cannot endure it:
but I look for peace from him : because he knoweth I do\v« bear
men's feud, but I dow not^ bear his feud. This is my only exer-
cise, that I fear I have done little good in my ministry ; but. I dare
not but say, I loved the bairns of the wedding chamber, and prayed
for, and desired the thriving of the marriage, and coming of his
kingdom.
1 apprehend no less than a judgment upon Galloway; and that
the Lord will visit this whole nation, for the quarrel of the Cove-
nant. But what can be laid upon me, or any the like of me, is
too light for Christ ; Christ dow^ bear more, and would bear death
and burning quick, in his weak servants, even for this honorable
cause, that I now suffer for. Yet, for all my complaints, (and he
knoweth that I dare not now dissemble,) he was never sweeter
and kinder than he is now ; one kiss now is sweeter than ten long
> The prplates, 1 Pet. v. 3. 2 Is not able to. 3 Self-accusations.
< Am able to. s Is able to.
Rutherford's letters. 115
since; sweet, sweet is his cross; light, light and easy is his yoke.
Oh, what a sweet step were it up to my Father's house, through
ten deaths, for the truth and cause of that unknown, and so not
half well-loved, Plant of Renown, the Man called the Branch, the
Chief among ten thousand, the Fairest among the sons of men !
Oh what unseen joys, how many hidden heart-burnings of love
are in the remnants of the sufferings of Christ ' My dear, worthy
Lady, I give it to your Ladyship, under my own hand, (my heart-
writirig as well as my hand,) welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet, and
glorious cross of Christ : welcome, sweet Jesus, with thy lio-ht
cross ; thou hast now gained and gotten all my love from me ;
keep what thou hast gotten. Only, wo, wo is me, for ray bereaved
flock, for the lambs of Jesus, which I fear shall be fed with dry
breasts ; but I spare now, madam, I dare not promise to see your
Ladyship, because of the little time I have allotted me, and I pur-
pose to obey the King, who hath power over my body ; and rebel-
hon to kings is unbeseeming Christ's ministers.
Be pleased to acquaint my Lady Mar with my case : I will look
that your Ladyship, and that good lady be mindful to God of the
Lord's prisoner, not for my cause, but for the Gospel's sake.
Madam, bind me more, (if more can be,) to your Ladyship, and
write thanks to your brother, my Lord of Lorn,' for what he liath
done for me, a poor unknown stranger to his Lordship. I shall
pray for him and his house while 1 live. It is his honor to open
his mouth in the streets for his wronged and oppressed Master,
Clirist Jesus.
Now, madam, commending your Ladyship, and the sweet child,
to the tender mercies of mine own Lord Jesus, and the good-will
of Him, who dwelt in the bush ; I rest,
Yours, in his own sweetest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, July 28, 1636.
LETTER LXII.
TO THE LADY CULROSS.
Madam, — -Your letter came in due time to me, now a prisoner
of Christ, and in bonds for the Gospel.
I am sentenced with deprivation and confinement within the
town of Aberdeen — but oh, my guiltiness, the follies of my youth,
the neglects in my calling, and especially in not speaking more for
the Kingdom, cr wn, and sceptre of my royal and princely King,
Jesus, do so sta e me in the face, that I apprehend danger in that
which is a crown of rejoicing to the dear saints of God ! This,
before my compearance,^ (which was three several days,) did
trouble me, and burdeaeth me more now ; howbeit Christ, and, iu
' Arc.liibiil.l Camphpll. atVnrwards Marquis of Argyll.
2 Appearance m obedience to legal citdtion.
116
rutherfor'ds letters.
him, God, reconciled, met me with open arms, and trysted ^ me,
precisely at the entry of the door of the Chancellor's hall, and
assisted me to answer so as the advantage that is, is not theirs,
but Christ's. Alas ! it is no cause of wondering, that I am thus
borne down with challenges ;2 for the world hath mistaken me,'
and no man knowelh what guiltiness is in me, so well as these
two, (who keep my eyes now waking, and my heart heavy,) I
mean, my heart and conscience, and jny Lord, who is greater than
my heart.
Show your brother that I desire him, while he is on the v/atch-
tower, to plead with his mother, and to plead with this land, and
to spare not to cry, for the fair crown of my sweet Lord Jesus, that
the interdicted and forbidden lords^ are plucking off his royal head.
If I were free of challenges'^ and a High Commission within my
soul, I would not give a straw to go to my Father's house, through
ten deaths, for the truth and cause of my lovely, lovely One,
Jesus ! but I walk in heaviness now.
If ye love me, and Christ in me, my dear Lady, pray, pray for
this only, that bygones* betwixt my Lord and me, may be by-
gones ;^ and that he would pass from the summons of his High
Commission, and seek nothing from me, but what he will do for
me, and work in me. If your Ladyship knew me, as I do myself,
ye would say, "Poor soul! no marvel." It is not my apprehen-
sion that createth this cross to me ; it is too real, and hath sad and
certain grounds. But I will not believe that God will take this
advantage of me when my back is at the wall.^ He, who forbid-
deth to add affliction to affliction, will he do it himself? Why
should he pursue a dry leaf and stubble? Desire him to spare
me now. Also the memory of the fair feast-days that Christ and
I had in his banqueting house-of-wine, and of the scattered flock
once committed to me, and now taken off my hand by himself,
because I was not so faithful in the end, as I was in the first two
years of my entry, when sleep departed from my eyes, because my
soul was taken up with a care for Christ's Lambs ; even these add
sorrow to my sonow.
Now, my Lord hath only given me this to say, and I write it
under mine own hand, (be ye the Lord's servant's witness,) wel-
come, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ : welcome, welcome,
fair, fair, lovely, royal King, Avith thine own cross ! Let us all
three go to Heaven together. Neither care I much to go from the
south of Scotland to the north ; and to be Christ's prisoner amongst
unco^ faces, — a place of this kingdom which I have little reason
to be in love with. I know that Christ will ma''e Aberdeen my
garden of delights. I am fully persuaded that Scotland shall eat
Ezekiel's book, that is written within and without with lamenta-
tion, and mourning, and wo, (Ezek. ii. 10,) but the saints shall
1 Appointed a meeting with me. 2 Self-accusations.
' 1 Pet. V. 3. 4 That past oflences may be forgiven and forgotten.
* That is, when I am in this distressed condition. 6 Strange.
Rutherford's letters. 117
get a drink of the well, that goeth through the streets of the New
Jerusalem, to put it down.
Thus, hoping that ye will think upon the poor Prisoner of
Christ, I pray that grace, grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, July 30, 1G30.
LETTER LXIIL
TO MR. ROBERT CUNNINGHAM,
MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL AT HOLYWOOD, IN IRELAND.
Well-beloved, and Reverend Brother, — Grace, mercy,
and peace, be to you — Upon acquaintance in Christ, I thought good
to take the opportunity of writing to you. Seeing it hath seemed
good to the Lord of the harvest to take the hooks ' out of our hands
for a time, and so lay upon us a more honorable service, even to
suffer for his name, it were good to comfort one another in writing.
I have had a desire to see you in the face, yet now, being the
Prisoner of Christ, it is taken away. I am greatly comforted to
hear of your stately spirit, for your princely and royal Captain,
Jesus Christ, our Lord, and of the grace of God in the rest of our
dear brethren with you.
. You have heard of my trouble I suppose. It hath pleased our
sweet Lord, Jesus, to let loose the malice of these interdicted lords''
in his house, to deprive me of my ministry at Anwoth, and to con-
fine me, eightscore miles from thence, to Aberdeen ; and, also,
(which was not done to any before,) to inhibit me to speak at all
in the name of Jesus, within this kingdom, under the pain of re-
bellion. The cause that ripened their hatred was my book against
the Arminians, whereof they accused me those three days on
which I appeared before them ; but, let our crowned King in
Zion reign ! by his grace the loss is theirs, the advantage is
Christ's and truth's. Albeit this honest cross gained some ground
on me by my heaviness, and my inward challenges ^ of conscience
for a time were sharp, yet now, for the encouragement of you all,
I dare say it, and write it under my hand, " Welcome, welcome,
sweet, sweet cross of Christ.''^ I verily think that the chains of .
my Lord Jesus are all overlaid with pure gold, and that his cross
is perfumed, and that it smelleth of Christ ; and that the victory
shall be by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of his truth ;
and (hat Christ lying on lijs back, in his weak servants and op-
pressed truth, shall ride over his enemies' bellies, and shall "strike
through kings in the day of his wrath." It is time that we laugh
when he laugheth ; and seeing he is now pleased to sit with*
1 Sickles. 2 The prelates, 1 Pet. v. 3.
3 Sell-accusations. * Bear with in silence.
118 Rutherford's letters.
wrongs for a time, it becometh us to be silent, until the Lord hath
let the enemies enjoy their hungry, lean, and feckless^ paradise.
Blessed are they who are content to take strokes with weeping
Christ ; faith will trust the Lord, and is not hasty, nor headstrong ;
neither is faith so timorous as to flatter a temptation, or to bud'
and bribe the cross. It is little up or little down^ that the Lamb
and his followers can get no law-surety, nor truce with crosses; it
must be so, till we be up in our Father's house.
My heart is wo* indeed for my mother church, that hath played
the harlot with many lovers; for her Husband hath a mind to
sell her for her horrible transgressions, and heavy will tlie hand
of the Lord be upon this backsliding nation. The ways of our
Zion mourn ; her gold is become dim, her white Nazarites are
black like a coal ; how shall the children not weep, when the
husband and the mother cannot agree ! Yet I believe Scotland's
sky will clear again, and that Christ will build again the old
waste places of Jacob ; and that our dead and dry bones shall be-
come an army of living men ; and that our Well-beloved may yet
feed among the lilies, until the day break, and the shadows flee
away.
My dear brother, let us help one another with our prayers.
Our King will mow down his enemies, and will come from Bozrah,
with his garments all dyed in blood, and for our consolation will
he appear, and call his wife Hephzibah,^ and his land Beulah ;*
for he will rejoice over us, and marry us, and Scotland will say,
*' What have I to do any more with idols?" Only let us be faith-
ful to Him who can ride through Hell upon a windlestrae^ and
his horse never stumble:— and let him make of me a bridge over
a water, so that his high and holy name may be glorified in me.
Strokes with the sweet Mediator's hand are very sweet ; he has
always been sweet to my soul, but since I suffered for him his
breath hath a sweeter smell than before. Oh, that every hair of
my head, and every member, and every bone in my body, were a
man, to witness a fair confession for him ! I should think all too
little for him. When I look over beyond the line, and beyond
death, to the laughing side of the world, I triumph and ride upon
the high places of Jacob, howbeit, otherwise I am a faint, dead-
hearted, cowardly man, often borne down, and hungry in waiting
for the marriage-supper of the Lamb. Nevertheless, I think it
the Lord's wise love that feedeth us with hunger, and maketh U8
fat with wants and desertions.
I know not, my dear brother, if our worthy brethren be gone to
1 Unsubstantial unreal.
8 Bad. bribe. To bud and bribe as it were to force bribes upon. These alliterative
phrases express in the Scottish dialect, intensity of meaning.
3 A small matter, of no importance. ■• GrieveiT.
5 That is viij delight is in her. 6 That is, married. Isaiah xlii. 4.
7 A dead, and withered stalk of crested dog's-tail grass. {^Cynosurus cristatus. —
Lin.) The meaning of Rutherford is. that Christ can, by the very feeblest and most
oontemplible instrumentality, triumphantly conquer all the united powers of Death
and Hell.
Rutherford's letters. 119
sea or not : they are on my heart, and in my prayers. If they be
yet with you, salute my dear friend John Sl.uart ; my well-
beloved brethren in tlie Lord, Mr. Blair, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Liv-
ingston, and Mr. Macleland, and acquaint them with my troubles,
and entreat them to pray for the poor afflicted Prisoner of Christ,
they are dear to my soul. I seek your prayers and theirs for my
flock ; the remembrance of them breaks my heart. I desire to
love that people, and others of my dear acquaintance in Christ,
with love in God, and as God loveth them. I know that He, who
sent me to the West and South, sendeth me also to the North. I
shall charge my soul to believe and to wait for him, and shall
follow his providence, and not go before it, nor stay behind it.
Now, my dear brother, taking farewell on paper, I commend
you to all the word of his grace, and to the work of His Spirit, to
Him, who holdeth the Seven Stars in his right hand, that you may
be kept spotless till the day of Jesus, our Lord.
I am your brother in affliction.
In our sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
From Irving, being on my journey to
Christ's Palace in Aberdeen.
August 4, 163G.
LETTER LXIV.
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF EARLSTON.
Much Honored Sir, — I find small hopes of Q.'s business. — 1
intend, after the council-day, to go on to Aberdeen. The Lord is
with me ; I care not what man can do. I burden no man, and I
want nothing. No king is better provided than I am. Sweet,
sweet, and easy is the cross of my Lord. All men whom I look
in the face, (of whatsoever rank, nobles and poor, acquaintance
and strangers,) are friendly to me. My Well-beloved is some
kinder and more warmly' than ordinary, and cometh and visiteth
my soul. My chains are over-gilded with gold. Only the remem-
brance of my fair days with Christ in Anwoth, and of my dear
flock (whose case is my heart's sorrow,) is vinegar to my sugared
wine — yet both sweet and sour feed my soul. No pen, no words,
no ingine,^ can express to you the loveliness of my only, onlj
Lord, Jesus.
Thus, in haste, making for my palace at Aberdeen, I bless you,
your wife, your eldest son, and other children.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, Sept. 5, 163G.
' Warm, * Genius.
120 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER LXV.
TO ROBERT GORDON, OF KNOCKBREX.
My Dearest Brother,-— I see Christ thinking shame,' (if I
may speak so.) to be in such a poor man's common ^ as mine. I
burden no man. 1 want nothing. No face hath gloomed ^ upon
me since I left you. God's sun and fair weather conveyeth me to
my time-paradise in Aberdeen. Christ hath so handsomely fitted
for my shoulders this rough tree of the cross, as that it hurteth me
nowise. My treasure is up in Christ's coffers ; my comforts are
greater than ye can believe ; my pen shall lye for penury of words
to write of them. God knoweth that I am filled with the joy of
the Holy Ghost. Only the memory of you, my Dearest in the
Lord, my Hock, and others, keepeth me under, and from being ex-
alted above measure. Christ's sweet sauce hath this sour mixed
with it ; but oh, such a sweet and pleasant taste !
I find small hopes of Q,.'s matter. Thus in haste. Remember
me to your wife, and to William Gordon.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, Sept. 5, 1G36.
LETTER LXVL
TO ROBERT GORDON, OF KNOCKBREX.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you — I am,
by God's niercy, come now to Aberdeen, the place of my confine-
ment, and settled in an honest man's house. I find the townsmen
cold, and general, and dry, in their kindness; yet I find a lodging
in the heart of many strangers. My challenges^ are revived
again, and I find old sores are bleeding of new; so dangerous and
painful is an undercoted^ conscience ; yet I have an eye to the
blood that is physic for such sores. But verily, I see that Chris-
tianity is conceived to be more easy and lighter than it is; so
that I sometimes think, that I never knew anything but the let-
ters of that name ; for our nature contenteth itself with little in
godliness. Our " Lord, Lord," seemeth to us, ten " Lords, Lords."
Little holiness in our balance is much because it is our holiness ;
and we love to lay small burdens on our soft natures, and to make
a fair court-way to Heaven ; and I know it were necessary to take
more pains than we do. and not to make Heaven a city more
easily taken than God hath made it. I persuade myself that
1 Ashamed. 2 Under oblicration to. 3 Frowned.
* Seh-accusationg. * Festerinij under the skin.
Rutherford's letters. 121
many runners will come short and shall get a disappointment.
Oh ! how easy is it to deceive ourselves, and to sleep and wish
that Heaven may fall down into our laps !
Yet for all my Lord's glooms, ' I find him sweet, gracious, lov-
ing, kind ; and I want bS^th pen and words to set forth the fair-
ness, beauty, and sweetness, of Christ's love, and the honor of this
cross of Christ, which is glorious to me, though the world thinketh
shame 2 thereof. I verily think that the cross of Christ would
blush and think shame ^ of those thin-skinned worldlings, who are
so married to their credit that they are ashamed of the sufferings
of Christ. Oh the honor to be scourged and stoned with Christ,
and to go through a furious faced death to life eternal ! — but men
would have law-burrows* against Christ's Cross.
Now, my dear brother, forget not the prisoner of Christ ; for I
see very few here who kindly fear God. Grace be with you. Let
my love in Christ, and hearty affection, be remembered to your
kind wife, and to your brother, John, and to all friends. The
Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 20, 163G.
LETTER LXVn.
FOR WILLIAM FULLERTON, PROVOST OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT.
Much Honored, and very Dear Friend, — Grace, mercy
and peace be to you — 1 am in good case, blessed be the Lord, re-
maining here in this unco^ town,, a prisoner for Christ and His
truth : and I am not ashamed of His cross ; my soul is comforted
with the consolations of His sweet presence for whom I suffer.
I earnestly entreat you to give your honor and authority to
Christ, and for Christ ; and be not dismayed for flesh and blood,
while you are for the Lord, and for His truth and cause. And,
howbeit, we see truth put to the worse for the time, yet Clnistwill
be a friend to truth, and will do for" those, who dare hazard all that
they have for Him, and for His glory. Sir, our fair day is coming,
and the court will change, and wicked men shall weep after noon,
and sorer than the sons of God, who weep in the morning. Let
us believe and hope for God's salvation.
Sir, I hope that I need not write to you for your kindness and
love to my brother, who is now to be distressed for the truth of
God, as well as I am. I think myself obliged to pray for you and
your worthy and kind bed-fellow and children, for your love to Him
and me also. I hope your pains for us in Christ shall not be
lost.
' Frowns. 2 jg ashamed. 3 Be ashamed.
* Security obtained from one on swearing the peace against him.
5 Strange. « Act for.
122 Rutherford's letters.
Thus recommending you to the tender mercy and loving-kind-
ness of God, I rest,
Your very loving and affectionate brother, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 21, 163G.
LETTER LXVIII.
TO HIS parishioners AT ANWOTH.
Dearly Beloved in our Lord, — Grace, mercy and peace
from God our Father, and from our Lord, Jesus Christ, be multi-
plied upon you.
I long exceedingly to hear of your on-going and advancement
in your journey to the Kingdom of God. My only joy out of
Heaven is to hear that the seed of God sown among you is grow-
ing, and coming to a harvest ; for I ceased not, while I was
among you, in season and out of season, (according to the meas-
ure of grace given unto me,) to warn and to stir up your minds ;
and I am free from the blood of all men ; for I have communicated
to you the whole counsel of God. And I now, again, charge, and
warn you, in the great, and dreadful name, and in the sovereign
authority of the King of kings and Lord of lords ; and I beseech
you also by the mercies of God, and by the bowels of Christ, by
your appearance before Christ Jesus, our Lord, by all the plagues
that are written in God's book, by your part of the holy city, the
New Jerusalem, that ye keep the truth of God as I delivered it to
you before many witnesses, in the sight of God and His holy an-
gels ; for now^ the last days are come and coming, when many
forsake Christ Jesus, and He saith to you, " Will ye also leave
me ?"
Remember that I forewarned you to forbear the dishonoring of
the Lord's blessed name, in swearing, blaspheming, cursing, and
the profaning of the Lord's Sabbath ; willing you to give that day
from morning to night to praying, praising, hearing of the Word,
conferring, and speaking, not your own words, but God's words ;
thinking and meditating on God's nature, word and works: and
that every day, at morning and at night, (at least,) ye should sanc-
tify the Lord, by praying in your houses, publicly, in the hearing
of all ; that ye should in any sort forbear the receiving the Lord's
Supper but after the form that I delivered it to you, according to
the example of Christ our Lord ; that is, that ye should sit, as
banqueters, at one table with our King, and eat and drink, and
divide the elements one to another : — the timber and stones of
the church walls shall bear witness that my soul was refreshed
with the comforts of God in that supper : — and that crossing in
baptism was unlawful, and against Christ's ordinance ; and that
no day, (besides the Sabbath, which is of his own appointment,)
should be kept holy, and sanctified with preaching and the public
Rutherford's letters. 123
worship of God, for the memory of Christ's birth, death, resurrec-
tion, and ascension; seeing such days so observed are unlawful,
will-worsliip, and not warranted in Christ's word : and that every-
thing in God's worship, not warranted by Christ's testament and
word, was unlawful : and, also, that idolatry, worshipping of God
before hallowed creatures, and adoring of Christ, by kneeling be-
fore bread and wine, was unlawful: and that ye should be humble,
sober, modest, forbearing pride, envy, malice, wrath, hatred, conten-
tion, debate, lying, slandering, stealing, and defrauding your neigh-
bors, in grass, corn or cattle, in buying or selling, boriowing or lend-
ing, taking or giving, in bargains or covenants : and that ye should
work with your own hands, and be content with that which God
hath given you : that ye should study to know God, and His will,
and keep in mind the doctrine of the Catechism, which I taught you
carefully, and speak of it in your houses, and in the fields, when
ye lie down at night, and rise in the morning : that ye should be-
lieve in the Son of God, and obey His commandments, and learn
to make your accounts in time with the Judge ; because death
and judgment are before you.
And if ye have now penury, and want of that word which I
dehvered to you in abundance — yea, (to God's honor I speak it,
without arrogating anything to myself, who am but a poor, empty
man,) ye had as much of the word, in nine years, while I was
among you, as some others have had in many — mourn for your
loss of time and repent. My soul pitieth you, that you should suck
dry breasts, and be put to draw at dry wells. Oh, that ye would
esteem highly the Lamb of God, your Well-beloved, Christ Jesus,
whose virtues and praises I preached unto you with joy, and which
He did countenance and accompany with some power ; and that
ye would call to mind the many fair days and glorious feasts
in our Lord's house-of-wine, that ye and I have had with Christ
Jesus !
But if there be any among you who take liberty to sin, because
I am removed from amongst you, and forget that word of truth
which ye heard, and turn the grace of God into wantonness, I
here, under my hand, in the name of Christ, my Lord, write to
such persons all the plagues of God, and all the curses that ever I
preached in the pulpit of Anwoth against the children of disobe-
dience: and, as the Lord liveth, the Lord Jesus will make good
what I write unto you. Therefore, dearly-beloved, fulfil my joy :
fear the great and dreadful name of the Lord: seek God with me.
Scotland's judgment sleepcth not : awake, and repent ! The
sword of the Lord shall go from the north to the south, from the
east to the west, and through all the corners of the land; and that
sword shall be drunk with your blood among the first; and I shall
stand up as a witness against you, if ye do not amend your ways
and your doings, and turn to the Lord with all your heart.
I beseech you also, my dearly-beloved in the liOrd, my joy, and
my crown, be not offended at the sufferings of me, the prisoner of
Jesus Christ. I am filled with joy and with ihe comforts of God.
124 Rutherford's letters.
Upon my salvation, I know and am peisnaded, that it is for God's
truth, and the honor of my King and royal Prince, Jesus, that I
now suffer : — and howbeit tliis town be my prison, yet Christ hath
made it my palace, a garden of pleasures, a lield and orchard of
delights. I know likewise, albeit 1 be in bonds, hat yet the word
of God is not in bonds ; my spirit also is in free-ward.' Sweet,
sweet have his comforts been to my soul ; my pen, tongue, and
heart, liave not words to express the kindness, love and mercy, of
my Well-beloved to me, in this house of my pilgrimage.
I charge you to fear and to love Christ ; and to seek a house
not made with hands, your Father's house above. This laughing
and white-skinned world beguileth you ; and if ye seek it more
than God, it will play you a slip, to the endless sorrow of your
heart. Alas, I could not make many of you to fall in love with
Christ; howbeit I endeavored to speak much good of him, and to
commend him to you, which as it was your sin, so it is my sor-
row ! yet, once again, suffer me to exhort, beseech, and obtest you,
in the Lord, to think of his love, and to be delighted with him,
who is altogether lovely : — I give you the word of a King, that ye
will not repent it.
Ye are in my prayers night and day ; I cannot forget you: I do
not eat, I do not drink, but I pray for you all.
I entreat you all, and every one of you, to pray for me. Grace,
grace be with you.
Your lawful, and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 23, 1637.
LETTER LXIX.
TO THE NOBLE, AND CHRISTIAN LADY, THE VISCOUNTESS OP
KENMURE.
My VERY Honorable, and dear Lady, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you — I cannot forget your Ladyship, and that sweet
child. I desire to hear what ihe Lord is doing to you and him : —
to write to me were charity. I cannot but write to my friends,
that Christ hath trysted ^ me in Aberdeen ; and my adversaries
have sent me here to be feasted witii love-banquets, with my royal,
high, higl), and princely King, Jesus. Madam, why should I
smother Christ's honesty? I dare not conceal his goodness to my
soul ; he looked fremmed^ and unco like^ upon me, when I came
first here ; but I believe himself better than his looks. I shall not
again quarrel with Christ for a gloom,'' now that he hath taken
the mask off his face, and saith, '• Kiss thy fill ;" and what can I have
more, whill I get great heaven in my little arms '? Oh, how sweet
* Hath liberty of egress. i Appointed me to meet him.
3 Distant strange in manner.
* Apparently strange and reserved in manner. 5 a frown.
Rutherford's letters. 125
are the suffermg-s of Christ, for Christ! God forgive them that
raise an ill report upon the sweet cross of Christ ; it is but our
weak and dim eyes, that look but to the black side, that maketh
us mistake. Those who can take that crabbed tree handsomely
upon their back, and fasten it on cannily,' shall find it such a bur-
den as wings are unto a bird, or sails to a ship. Madam, rue not
of your having chosen the better part. Upon my salvation, this
is Christ's truth which I now suiFer for. If I found but cold com-
fort*^ in my sufferings, I would not beguile others; I should have
told you plainly. But the truth is, Christ's crown, his sceptre, and
the freedom of his kingdom, is that which is now called in ques-
tion ; because we will not allow that Christ ought to pay tribute,
and be a vassal to the shields of the earth ; therefore, the sons of
our mother are angr}^ at us. But it becometh not Christ to hold
any man's stirrup. It were a sweet and honorable death to die
for the honor of that royal and princely king, Jesus. His love is
as a mystery to the world. I would not have believed that there
was so much in Christ as there is. " Come and see," maketh
Christ to be known in his excellency and glory. I wish all this
nation knew how sweet his breath is. It is little to see Christ in
a book, as men do the world in a card ; ^ they talk of Christ by
the book and the tongue, and no more, but to come nigh Christ,
and hause^ him, and embrace him, is another thing. Madam,
I write to your honor, for your encouragement in that honorable
profession which Christ hath honored you with. Ye have gotten
the sunny side of the brae,^ and the best of Christ's good things;
he hath not given you the bastard's portion; and, howbeit ye get
strokes, and sour looks from your Lord, yet believe his love more
than your own feeling, for this world can take nothing from you
that is truly yours, and death can do you no wrong. Your rock
doth not ebb and flow, but your sea. That v.'hich Christ hath
said, he will bide by.« He will be your tutor. Ye shall not get
your charters of Heaven to play yourself with. It is good that ye
have lost your credit with Christ, and that Lord Freewill shall
not be your tutor. Christ will lippen' the taking of you to Hea-
ven neither to yourself nor any deputy, but only to himself —
blessed be your Tutor ! When your Head shall appear, your
Bridegroom and Lord, your day shall then dawn, and it will never
have an afternoon, nor an evening shadow. Let your child be
Christ's: let him stay beside you as the Lord's pledge, that you
shall wdlingly render again, if God will. Madam, I find folks
here kind to me, but in the night and under their breath. My
Master's cause may not come to ihe crown of the causeway.'
Others are kind according to their fashion. Many think me a
I Prudently, with skilful adaptation. 2 Discouragement.
3 Chart. * Clasp around the neck, embrace.
5 Slope, declivity. Sunny side of the brae, a proverbial ex]jression, denotincr the
most sheltered, warm, plentiful, and comfortable situation.
6 Stand to. 7 Intrust.
* To corns to the crown of the causeway, to appear openly in public, without fear or
shame.
126 Rutherford's letters.
strange man, and iny cause not good ; but I care not much for
man's tlioughts or approbation.
I think no shame ' of the cross. The preachers of this town
pretend great love, but the prelates have added to the rest this
gentle cruelty, (for so they think it,) to discharge me of the pulpits
of this town. The people murmur and cry out against it: and to
speak truly, (howbeit Christ is most indulgent to me otherwise,)
my silence on the Lord's day keepeth me from being exalted above
measure, and from startling ^ in the heat of my Lord's love. Some
people affect mc ; for the which cause, I hear the preachers here
propose to have my confinement changed to another place ; so
cold is northern love : but Christ and I will bear it. I have wres-
tled long with this sad silence. I said, What aileth Christ at my
service ? and my soul hath been at a pleading with Christ, and at
yea and nay ; but I will yield to him, providing my suffering may
preach more than my tongue did ; for I gave not Christ an inch,
but for twice as good again:— in a word, I am a fool, and he is
God. I shall hold my peace hereafter.
Let me hear from your liadyship, and your dear child. Pray
for a prisoner of Christ, who is mindful of your Ladyship. Re-
member my obliged obedience to my good Lady Mar. Grace,
grace be with you. I write and pray blessings to your sweet child.
Yours, in all dutiful obedience, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Nov. 22, 1636.
LETTER LXX.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE, AND CHRISTIAN LADY, MY LADY
VISCOUNTESS OP KENMURE.
Madam, — ^Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I received your
Ladyship's letter. It refreshed me in my heaviness. Tiie bless-
ing and prayers of a prisoner of Christ come upon you. Since
my coming hither, Galloway hath sent me not a line, except what
my brother, Earlston, and his son did write. I cannot get my
papers transported : but madam, I want not kindness of One who
hath the gate^ of it; Christ, (if he had never done more for me
since I was born,) hath engaged my heart, and gained my blessing,
in this house of my pilgrimage. It pleaseth my Well-beloved to
dine with a poor prisoner, and the King's spikenard casteth a
fragrant smell. Nothing grieveth me but that I eat my feasts
alone, and that I cannot edify his saints. Oh, that this nation
knew what is betwixt him and me; none would scaur'' at the
cross of Christ ! My silence eateth me up : but he hath told me
' Am not ashamed.
2 To startle, to run about in .i wild and excited manner, as cattle do in hot weather
when stuiiif by the cradfly. Rutheriord means that his forced silence on the Lord's
day kept him from being exalted, by his persecutions, above measure.
3 Way. * Boggle.
Rutherford's letters. 127
that he thanketh me no less than if I were preaching- daily. He
seeth how gladly I would be at it ; and, therefore, my wages are
going to the fore" up in Heaven, as if I were still preaching Christ,
Captains pay duly bedfast soldiers, howbeit they dow not^ march
nor carry armor. " Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be
glorious in the eyes of my Lord, and my Lord shall be my
strength, (Isa. xlix. 5.) My garland, — the " Banished Minister"
— the term of Aberdeen-Trashameth me not. I have seen the white
side of Christ's cross — lovely hath he been to his oppressed ser-
vant! (Psal. cxlvi. 7, 8, 9,) "The Lord executeth judgment for
the oppressed ; he giveth food to the hungry : the Lord looseth the
prisoner ; the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down : the Lord
preserveth the stranger." If it were come to exchanging of
crosses, I would not exchange my cross with any : I am well
pleased with Christ, and he with me ; I hope that none shall hear
us. ^ It is true, that for all this I get my meat with many strokes,
and am seven times a day up and down, and am often anxious and
cast down for the case of my oppressed brother ; yet I hope that
the Lord will be surety for his servant. But now, upon some
weak, very weak experience. I am come to love a rumbling, and
raging devil best: seeing we must have a devil to hold the saints
waking, I wish a cmnbersome devil, rather than a secure and
sleeping one. At my fust coming hither, I took the dorts^ at
Christ, and took up a stomach against him. I said he had cast
me over the dyke^ of the vineyard like a dry tree. But it was his
mercy, I see, that the fire did not burn the dry tree : and now, as
if my Lord Jesus had done that fault, and not I who belied my
Lord, he hath made the first mends,^ and he spake not one word
against me ; but he hath come again and quickened my soul with
his presence; nay, now I think the very annuity'' and casualties
of the cross of Christ Jesus, my Lord, and those comforts that ac-
company it, better than the world's set rent.^ O how many rich
oflf-fallings are in my King's house ! I am persuaded, and dare
pawn my salvation on it, that it is Christ's truth which I now
suffer for. I know that his comforts are no dreams ; he would not
put his seal on blank paper, nor deceive his afflicted ones that
trust in him. Your Ladyship wrote to me that ye are an ill
scholar. Madam, ye must go in at Heaven's gates, and your book
in your hand, still learning. Ye have had your own large share
of troubles, and a double portion ; but it saith that your Father
counteth you not a bastard — full-begotten bairns'' are nurtured,'"
(Heb. xii."8.)
I long to hear of the child. I write the blessings of Christ's
Prisoner and the mercies of Gad to him. Let him be Christ's and
' RunnincT to account, in the course of being laid up in store.
2 Have not ability. 3 Prov. xiv. 10. * Pet, sulks.
6 Wall. « First mail e amends. 7 Q,uit-rent. » Full ri;nt.
9 Legitimate children, by the same p:»rents on both sides, in contradistinction to
children who are by the same parent on the one side, but by diderent parents on the
other. 1" Corrected.
128 Rutherford's LETTERS.
yours betwixt you, but let Christ be whole play-maker ; • let him
he the lender, and ye the borrower, not an owner.
Madam, it is not long since I wrote to your Ladyshij), that
Christ is keeping mercy for you ; and I bide by it still, and now I
write it under my hand. Love him dearly. Win in'-* to see him.
There is in him that which you never saw. He is aye nigh, he
is a tree of life, green and blossoming, both summer and winter.
There is a nick^ in Cliristianity, to the which whosoever cometh
they see and feel more than others can do. I invite you of new
to come to him. " Come and see" will speak better things of him,
than I can do: " Come nearer" will say much. God never thought
this world a portion worthy of you ; he w^ould not even^ you to a
gift of dirt and clay ; nay, he will not give you Esau's portion ;
but reserve the inheritance of Jacob for you. Are ye not well
married now? Have ye not a good husband now?
My heart cannot express what sad nights I have for the Virgin
Daughter of my people ; wo is me, for our time is coming. (Ezek.
vii. 10,) "Behold, the day, behold, it is come, the morning is gone
forth, the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded : violence is
risen up into a rod of wickedness :" the sun is gone down upon
our prophets. A dry wind upon Scotland, but neither to fan nor
cleanse ; but out of all question, when the Lord hath cut down
his forest, the after-growth of Lebanon shall flourish. They shall
plant vines in our mountain, and a cloud shall yet fill the Temple.
Now the blessing of our dearest Lord, Jesus, and the blessing of
him that is separated from his brrethen, come upon you.
Yours, at Aberdeen, the Prisoner of Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER LXXI.
TO MR. HUGH M A C K A I L .
Reverend and Dear Brother, — 1 thank you for your letter.
I cannot but show you, that as I never expected anything from
Christ but much good and kindness, so he hath made me to find
it in the house of my pilgrimage. And believe me, brother, I
give it to you under mine own hand-writ, that, whoso looketh to
the white side of Christ's cross, and can take it up handsomely
with faith and coiu'age, will find it such a burden as sails are to a
ship or wings to a bird. I find that my Lord hath over-gilded
that black tree, and hath perfumed it, and oiled it, with joy and
consolation. Like a fool, once I would chide and plead with
Christ, and slander him to others of unkindness : but I trust in
God, not to call his glooms ^ unkind again; for he hath taken
from me my sackcloth ; and I, verily, cannot tell you, what a
» Sole director. 2 Get in. 3 Notch, degree.
* To even, disparagingly to equal to. s Frowns.
Rutherford's letters. 129
poor, sold Joseph and prisoner, (with whom my mother's children
were angry,) doth now think of kind Christ. I shall chide no
more, providing he will quit me all by-gones,^ for I am poor. I
am taught, in this ill-weather, to go on the lee-side of Christ, and
to put him in between me and the storm. I thank God I walk
on the sunny side of the brae.' I write it, that ye may speak in
my behalf the praises of my Lord to others, that my bonds may
preach. Oh if ^ all Scotland knew the feasts, and love-blinks,^
and visits, that the prelates have sent me to ! I will verily give
my Lord Jesus a free discharge of all, that I, like a fool, laid to
his charge, and beg him pardon to the mends. ^ God grant, that,
in my temptations, I come not on his wrong side again, and never
again fall a raving against my Physician, in my fever !
Brother, plead with your mother, while ye have time. A pulpit
would be a high feast to me ; but I dare not say one word against
Him, who hath done it. I am out of the house as yet ; my sweet
Master saith I shall have house-room at his own elbow, albeit
their synagogue will need-force^ cast me out.
A letter were a work of charity to me. Grace be with you.
Pray for me.
Your brother, and Christ's Prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, Nov. 22, 1636.
LETTER LXXIL
TO JOHN FLEMING, BAILLIE'' OF LEITH.
My VERY Dear Friend. — Grace, mercy and peace be to you.
I received your letter. I bless my Lord that, through Jesus Christ,
I find his word good, (Isa. xlviii. 10,) " I have chosen thee in the
furnace of affliction ;" and, (Psal. xci. 15,) " I will be with him in
trouble." I never expected other at Christ's hand than much
good and comfort ; and I am not disappointed. I find my Lord's
cross over-gilded and oiled with comforts. My Lord hath now
shown me the white side of his cross. I would not exchange my
weeping in prison with the Fourteen Prelates' laughter, amidst
their hungry and lean joys. This world knoweth not the sweet-
ness of Christ's love : it is a mystery to them.
At my first cflming here, I foiuid great heaviness, especially be-
cause it had pleased the prelates to add this gentle cruelty to my
former sufferings, (for it is gentle to them,) to inhibit the ministers
of the town to give me the liberty of a pulpit. I said. What aileth
Christ at my service? but I was a fool; he hath chided himself
friends with me. If ye, and others of God's children will praise
1 Former offences.
2 Slope. Su7imj side of the brae, the most sheltered, warm, and comfortable situation.
3 Oh that. ■• Gleams, glimpses. 5 To boot. 6 Under plea of necessity.
' A magistrate in a Scottish borough, analogous to an alderman in an English one.
9
130 Rutherford's letters.
His great name, who maketh worthless men witnesses for him, my
silence and sufferings shall preach more than my tongue could
do. If his glory be seen in me, I am satisfied. I want for no
kindness of Christ. And, sir, I dare not smother his liberality. I
write it to you, that ye may praise, and desire your brother and
others to join with me in this work.
This land shall be made desolate. Our iniquities are full.
The Lord saitli that we shall drink, and spue, and fall. Remem-
ber my love to your good, kind wife. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Nov. 23, 1636.
LETTER LXXm.
TO earlston, elder,
" And they overcame the Dragon by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their
testimony : and they loved not their lives unto the death." — (Rev. xii. 11.)
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you — I
long to see you on paper, and to be refreshed by you.
I cannot but desire you, and ciiarge you, to help me to praise
Him, who feedeth a poor prisoner with the fatness of his house.
Oh, how weighty is his love ! Oh, but there is much telling in
Christ's kindness ! The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness,
hath paid me my hundred-fold, well-told and one to the hundred.
I complained of him, but he is owing me nothing now. Sir, I
charge you to help me to praise his goodness, and to proclaim to
others my Bridegroom's kindness, whose love is better than wine.
I took up an action against Christ, and bought a plea ' against
his love, and libelled unkindness against Christ, my Lord ; and I
said, " This is my death, he hath forgotten me," but my meek
Lord held his peace, and beheld me, and would not contend for the
last word of flyting, '^ and now he hath chided himself friends with
me ; and now I see that he must be God, and I must be flesh. I
pass from my summons. I acknowledge that he might have given
me my fill of it, and never troubled himself; but now he hath
taken away the mask ; I have been comforted ; he could not
smother his love any longer to a prisoner and a* stranger — God
grant that I may never buy a plea ^ against Christ again, but may
keep good quarters with him !
I want no' kindness, no love-tokens ; but oh, wise is his love !
for, notwithstanding this hot summer-blink,^ I am kept low with
the grief of my silence; for his word is in me as a fire in my
bowels ; and I see the Lord's vineyard laid waste, and the heathen
entered into the sanctuary ; and my belly is pained, and my soul
1 Controversy. 2 Scolding. 3 Am not in want of.
* Gleam of the sun breaking throutjli the clouds.
Rutherford's letters. 131
in heaviness, because the Lord's people are gone into captivity,
and because of the fury of the Lord, and that wind (but neither
to fan nor purge) which is coming upon apostate Scotland. I am
also kept awake with the late wrong done to my brother ; but I
trust that ye will counsel and comfort him. Yet in this mist, I
see, and believe, that the Lord will heal this halting kirk, and will
lay her stones with fair colors, and her foundations with sapphires,
and will make her windows of agates, and her gates carbuncles,
(Isa. liv. 11, 12,) and for brass he will bring gold. He hath created
the smith that formed the sword ; no weapon in war shall prosper
against us. Let us be glad, and rejoice in llie Lord, for his salva-
tion is near to come.
Remember me to your wife and your son, John : and I entreat
you to write to me. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Dec. 30, 1636.
LETTER LXXIV.
TO THE LADY CULROSS
0 " These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes,
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." — (Rev. vii. 14.)
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you. I
greatly long to be refreshed with your letter.
I am now, (all honor and glory to the King eternal, immortal,
and invisible !) in better terms with Christ than I was. I, like a
fool, summoned my Husband and Lord, and libelled unkindness
against him : but now I pass from that foolish pursuit, I give over
the plea ^ — he is God, and I am man. I was loosing a fast stone,
and digging at the ground-stone,'^ the love of my Lord, to shake
and unsettle it ; but, God be thanked, it is fast : all is sure. In my
prison, he hath shown me day-light ; he dought not^ hide his love
any longer. Christ was disguised and masked, and I apprehended
it was not he ; and he hath said, " It is I, be not afraid !" and
now his love is better than wine.
Oh, that all the virgins had part of the Bridegroom's love,
whereupon he maketli me to feed ! Help me to praise : I charge
you, madam, help me to pay praises ; and tell others, the daugh-
ters of Jerusalem, how kind Christ is to a poor prisoner. He hath
paid me my hundred-fold ; it is well told me, and one to the hun-
dred. I am nothing behind with Christ. Let not fools, because
of their lazy and soft flesh, raise a slander and an ill report upon
the cross of Christ : it is sweeter than fair.
I see that grace groweth best in winter. This poor persecuted
kirk, this lily among the thorns, shall blossom and laugh upon the
Gardener ; the Husbandman's blessing shall light upon it. Oh,
' Controversy. 2 Foundation. 3 Was not able to.
132 Rutherford's letters,
if' I could be free of jealousies'^ of Christ after this ; and believe,
and keep good quarters with my dearest Husband ! for he hath
been kind to the stranger ; and yet, in all this fair, hot summer-
weather, I am kept from saying, "It is good to be here," with my
silence, and with grief to see my Mother wounded, and her veil
taken from her, and the fair temple casten down ; and my belly
is pained, my soul is heavy for the captivity of the Daughter of
my people, and because of the fury of the Lord, and his fierce in-
dignation against apostate Scotland.
I pray you, madam, to let me have that which is my prayer
here, that my sufferings may preach to the four quarters of this
land ; and, therefore, tell others how open-handed Christ hath been
to the prisoner, and the oppressed stranger- — why should I conceal
it ? I know no other way how to glorify Christ, than to make an
open proclamation of his love, and of his soft and sweet kisses to
me in the furnace, and of his fidelity to such as suffer for him.
Give it me under your hand, that ye will help me to pray, and
praise ; but rather to praise and rejoice in the salvation of God.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his dearest, and only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Dec. 30, 1636.
LETTER LXXV.
TO WILLIAM GORDON, OF ROBERTON.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — So often
as I think on our case, in our soldier's night-watch, and of our
fighting-life in the fields, while we are here, I am forced to say,
prisoners in a dungeon, condemned by a judge to want the light
of the sun, and moon, and candle till their dying day, are no more,
nay, not so much, to be pitied as we are. For they are weary of
their life, they hate their prison ; but we fall-to, in our prison,
where we see little, to drink ourselves drunk with the night-plea-
sures of our weak dreams ; and we long for no better life than
this : but, at the blast of the Last Trumpet, and the shout of the
Archangel, when God shall take down the shepherd's tent of this
fading world, we shall have not so much as a drink of water of all
the dreams that we now build on. Alas ! that the sharp and
bitter blasts on face and sides, whicli meet us in this hfe, have not
learned us mortification, and made us dead to this world ! We
buy our own sorrow, and we pay dear for it, when we spend out
our love, our joy, our desires, our confidence, upon a handful of
snow and ice, which time shall melt away to nothing, and go
thirsty out of the drunken inn when all is done. Alas ! that we
inquire not for the clear fountain ! but are so foohsh as to drink
foul, muddy, and rotten waters, even till our bed-time ; and then,
' Oh that. 2 Suspicions.
Rutherford's letters. 133
in the Resurrection, when we shall be awakened, our yesternight's
sour drink, and swinish dregs shall rift' up upon us; and sick,
sick shall many a soul be then.
I know not a wholesome fountain but one : I know not a thing
worth the buying, but Heaven. And my own mind is, that if
comparison were made betwixt Christ and Heaven, I would sell
Heaven with my blessing to buy Christ. Oh, if ^ I could raise the
market for Christ, and heighten the market a pound for a penny,
and cry up Christ in men's estimation ten thousand talents more
than men think of him ! But they are shaping him, and crying
him down, to valuing him at their unworthy halfpenny ; or else
exchanging and baitering Christ with the miserable old fallen
house of this vain world : or then ^ they lend him out upon inter-
est, and play the usurers with Christ. Because they profess him,
and give out before men that Christ is their treasure and stock ;
and, in the meantime, praise of men, and a name, and ease, and
the summer-sun of the Gospel, is the usury they would be at ; so
when the trial cometh, they quit the stock for the interest, and
lose all. Happy are they who can keep Christ by himself alone,
and keep him clean and whole till God come and count with
them.
I know that in your hard and heavy trials long since, ye thought
well and highly of Christ. But truly no cross should be old to us ;
we should not forget them because years are come betwixt us and
them, and cast them by hand,* as we do old clothes. We may
make a cross old in time, new in use, and as fruitful as in the be-
ginning of it. God is where, and what he was seven years ago,
whatever change be in us. I speak not this as if I thought that
ye had forgotten what God did to have your love long since ; but
that ye may awake yourself, in this sleepy age, and remember
fruitfully Christ's first wooing and suiting ^ of your love, both with
fire and water ; and try if he got his answer, or if ye be yet to
give it him. For I find in myself that water runneth not faster
through a sieve than our warnings slip from us ; for I have lost
and casten by-hand^ many, summonses which the Lord hath sent
me ; and, therefore, the Lord hath given me double charges, that
I trust in God shall not rive me. I bless His great name, who is
no niggard in holding in crosses upon me, but spendeth largely
his rods, that he may save me from this perishing world. How
plentiful God is in means of this kind is esteemed, by many, one
of God's unkind mercies ; but Christ's cross is neither a cruel nor
an unkind mercy, but the love-token of a father. I am sure that
a lover, chasing us for our well, and to have our love, should not
be run away from, nor fled from. God send me no worse mercy
than the sanctified cross of Christ portendeth, and I am sure that
I should be happy and blessed.
Pray for me, that I may find house-room in the Lord's house to
1 Belch, • 2 Oh that. 3 Otherwise.
* Aside. 5 Urging a suit, 6 Cast aside.
134 Rutherford's letters.
speak in his name. Remember, my dearest love, in Christ, to
your wife. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1636.
LETTER LXXVL
TO JOHN KENNEDY, BAILLIE OF AYR.
Worthy, and Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you — I long to see you in this northern world on paper; I know
it is not forgetfulness that ye write not. I am every way in good
case, both in soul and body ; all honor and glory be to my Lord :
I want nothing but a further revelation of the beauty of the un-
known Son of God. Either I know not what Christianity is, or
we have stinted a measure of so many ounce weights and no more
upon holiness ; and there we are at a stand, drawing our breath
all our life — a modeiation in God's way, now, is much in request.
I profess that I have never taken pains to find out Him whom my
soul loveth ; there is a gate' yet of finding out Christ that I have
never lighted upon. Oh if I could find it out ! Alas, how soon
are we pleased with our own shadow in a glass ! It were good to
be beginning in sad earnest^ to find out God, and to seek the right
tread of Christ. Time, custom, and a good opinion of ourselves,
our good meaning, and our lazy desires, our fair shows, and the
world's glistering lustres, and these broad passraenls^ and busk-
ings* of religion, that bear bulk in the Kiric, is that wherewith
most satisfy themselves; but a bed watered with tears, a throat
dry with praying, eyes as a fountain of tears for the sins of the
land, are rare to be found among us. Oh if ^ we could know the
power of godliness !
This is one part of my case ; and another is, that I like a fool,
once summoned Christ for unkindness, and complained of his
fickleness and inconstancy, because he- would have no more of my
service nor preaching, and had casten me out of the inheritance
of the Lord ; and now I confess that this was but a bought plea,
and I was a fool ; yet he hath borne with me. I gave him a fair
advantage against me, but love and mercy would not let him take
it ; and the truth is, now he hath chided himself friends with me,
and hath taken away the mask, and hath renewed his wonted
favor in such a manner, that he hath paid me my hundred-fold in
this life, and one to the hundred. This prison is my banqueting
house ; I am handled as softly and delicately as a dawted " child.
I am nothing behind, (I see,) with Christ ; he can, in a month,
make up a year's losses. And I write this to you, that I may
entreat, nay, abjure and charge you, by the love of our Well-be-
1 Way. 2 Oh that. 3 Sober earnest.
* Strips of lace sewed on garments, gaudy ornaments
6 Deckings. 6 Fondled.
Rutherford's letters. 135
loved, to help me to praise; and to tell all your Christian acquaint-
ance to help me, for I am as deeply drowned in his debt as any
dyvour^ can be: and yet in this fair sunblink,^ I have something
to keep me from startling,^ or being exalted above measure — his
word is as fire shut up in my bowels, and I am weary with for-
bearing. The ministers in this town are saying that they will
have my prison changed into less bounds, because they see God
with me. My mother hath borne me a man of contention, one that
striveth with the whole eaith. The late wrongs and oppressions
done to my brother keep my sails low : yet I defy crosses to em-
bark me in such a plea against Christ as I was troubled with of
late. I hope to over-hope and over-believe my troubles ; I have
cause now to trust Christ's promise more than his gloom.*
Remember my hearty affection to your wife. My soul is grieved
for the success of our brethren's journey to New England f but
God hath somewhat to reveal that we see not. Grace be with
you. Pray for the prisoner.
Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jan. 1, 1637.
LETTER LXXVIL
TO MY LORD BOYD,
My very Honorable, and Good Lord, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to your Lordship. — Out of the worthy report I hear of
your Lordship's zeal for this borne-down and oppressed Gospel, I
am bold to write to your Lordship, beseeching you by the mercies
of God. by the honor of our royal and princely King, Jesus, by the
sorrows, tears, and desolation of your afllicted Mother-church, and
by the peace of your conscience, and your joy in the day of Christ,
that your Lordship would goon, in the strength of your Lord, and
in the power of his might, to bestir yourself, for the vindicating of
the fallen honor of your Lord Jesus. Oh, blessed hands for ever-
more, that shall help to put the crown upon the head of Christ
again in Scotland ! I dare promise in the name of our Lord, that
this will fasten and fix the pillars and the stakes of your honora-
ble house upon earth if you lend and lay in pledge in Christ's
hand, (upon spiritual hazard,) life, estate, house, honor, credit,
moyen,^ friends, the favor of men, (suppose kings with three
crowns,) so being that ye may bear witness, and acquit yourself
as a man of valor and courage, to the Prince of your salvation,
for the purging of his temple, and sweeping out the lordly Diotre-
pheses, time-courting Demases, corrupt Hymaneuses and Phile-
tuses, and other such oxen, that with their dung defile the Temple
1 Bankrupt. 2 Gleam of the sun.
3 Over excitement, an allusion to the wild and excited running about of cattle in a
hot day. * Frown. 5 See Letter CCL. 6 Interest.
136 Rutherford's letters.
of the Lord. Is not Christ now crying, " Who will help me? who
will come out with me, to take part with me, and share in the
honor of my victory over these mine enemies, who have said, We
will not have this Man to rule over us?"
My very honorable, and dear Lord, join, join as ye do with
Christ ; he is more worth to you, and your posterity, than this
world's may-flowers, and withering riches and honor, that shall go
away as smoke, and evanisli in a night vision, and shall in one
half-hour, after the blast of the Archangel's trumpet, lye in white
ashes. Let me beseech your Lordship to draw by ^ the lap of
time's curtain, and to look in, through the window, to great and
endless eternity, and consider, if a worldly price, (suppose this httle
round clay globe of this ashy and dirty earth, the dying idol of
the fools of this world, were all your own,) can be given for one
smile of Christ's God-like and soul-ravishing countenance, in that
day, when so many joints and knees of thousand thousands wail-
ing shall stand before Christ, trembling, shouting, and making
their prayers to hills and mountains, to fall upon them, and hide
them from the face of the Lamb. Oh, how many would sell lord-
ships and kingdoms that day, and buy Christ ! But, oh, the mar-
ket shall be closed and ended ere then ! Your Lordship hath now
a blessed venture of winning court with the Prince of the kings of
the earth : he himself weeping, truth borne down and fallen in
the streets, and an oppressed Gospel, Christ's bride with watery
eyes, and spoiled of her veil, her hair hanging about her eyes,
forced to go in ragged apparel, the banished, silenced, and impri-
soned prophets of God, who have not the favor of liberty to pro-
phesy in sackcloth ; all these, I say, call for your help. Fear not
worms of clay, the moth shall eat them as a garment. Let the
Lord be your fear ; he is with you, and shall fight for you ; thus
shall ye cause the blessing of those, who are ready to perish, to
come upon you ; and ye shall make the heart of this your Mother-
church to sing for joy. The liamb and his armies are with you,
and the kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's. I am persuaded
that there is not another gospel, nor another saving truth, than
that which ye now contend for. I dare hazard my heaven and
salvation upon it, that this is the only saving way to glory.
Grace, grace be with your Lordship.
Your Lordship's,
At all respectful obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LXXVin.
TO MARGARET BALLANTYNE.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. — It is more
than time that I should have written to you, but it is yet good
1 Past. 2 Delusion.
Rutherford's letters. 137
time, if I could help your soul to mend your pace, and to go more
swiftly to your heavenly country : for truly ye have need to make
all haste, because the inch of your day that remaineth will quickly
slip away ; for whether we sleep or wake, our glass runneth — the
tide bideth no man. Beware of a beguile ^ in the matter of your
salvation. Wo, wo for evermore, to them that lose that prize.
For what is behind, when the soul is once lost, but that sinners
warm their bits of clay-houses at a fire of their own kindling, for
a day or two, which doth rather suffocate wath its smoke than
warm them ; and at length they lie down in sorrow, and are
clothed with everlasting shame ! I would seek no further mea-
sure of faith to begin withal than to believe really and stedfastly
the doctrine of God's justice, his all-devouring wrath and ever-
lasting burning, where sinners are burnt, soul and body, in a
river and great lake of fire and brimstone : then they w^ould wish
no more goods than the thousandth part of a cold fountain-well to
cool their tongue ; they would then buy death with enduring of
pain and torment for as many years as God hath created drops of
rain since the creation ; but there is no market of buying or selling
life or death there. Oh, alas ! the greatest part of this world run
to the place of that torment rejoicing and dancing, eating, drink-
ing, and sleeping. My counsel to you is, that ye start in time to
be after Christ ; for if ye go quickly, Christ is not far before you,
ye shall overtake him. O Lord God, what is so needful as this ?
" Salvation, salvation !" Fy upon this condemned, and foolish
world, that would give so little for salvation ! Oh, if there were
a free market for salvation proclaimed in that day, when the
trumpet of God shall awake the dead, how many buyers would
be then ! God send me no more happiness than that salvation
which the blind world, (to their eternal wo,) letteth slip through
their fingers. Therefore, look if ye can give out your money (as
Isaiah speaketh, ch. Iv. 2,) for bread, and lay Christ and his blood
in wadset ^ for Heaven. It is a dry and hungry bairn's part of
goods that Esaus are hunting for here. I see thousands following
the chase, and in the pursuit of such things, while in the mean-
.time they lose the blessing; and, when all is done, they have
caught nothing to roast for supper, but lie down hungry ; and,
besides, they go to bed when they die, without a candle ; for God
saith to them, " This shall ye have at my hand, ye shall lie down
in sorrow." (Isaiah 1. 11.) And truly this is as ill-made a bed
to lie upon as one could wish ; for he cannot sleep soundly, nor
rest sweetly, who hath sorrow for his pillow. Rouse, rouse up,
therefore, your soul, and speer^ how Christ and your soul met
together. I am sure that they never got Christ, who were not
once sick at the yolk of the heart for him. Too, too many whole
souls think that they have met with Christ, who had never a
wearied niglit for the want of him: but alas! what richer are
men, that they dreamed the last night they had much gold, and,
' Delusion. 2 Alienation under reversion. 3 Inquire.
138 Rutherford's letters.
^when they awoke in the morninf^, they found it was but a dream?
What are all the sinners in the world, in that day when heaven
and earth shall go up in a flame of fire, but a number of beguiled
dreamers? Every one shall say of his hunting and his conquest,^
" Behold, it was a dream !" every man in that day will tell his
dream. I beseech you, in the Lord Jesus, beware, beware of un-
sound work in the matter of your salvation : ye may not, ye can- ,
not, ye dow not ^ want Christ ; then, after this day, convene all -^
your lovers before your soul, and give them their leave ;3 and
strike hands with Christ, that, thereafter, there may be no happi-
ness to you but Christ ; no hunting for anything but Christ ; no
bed at night, when death cometh, but Christ — Christ, Christ, who
but Christ ! I know this much. of* Christ, that he is not ill* to be
found, nor lordly of his love. Wo had been my part of it for
evermore, if Christ had made a dainty of himself to me. But,
God be thanked, I gave nothing for Christ ; and now I protest,
before men and ano^els, that Christ cannot be exchanofed, that
Christ cannot be sold, that Christ cannot be weighed. Where
would angels, or all the world find a balance to weigh him in?
All lovers blush when ye stand beside Christ ! Wo upon all love
but the love of Christ ; hunger, hunger for evermore, be upon all
heaven but Christ ; shame, shame for evermore be upon all glory
but Christ's glory. I cry death, death upon all lifes« but the life
of Christ. Oh, what is it that holdeth us asunder? Oh, that
once we could have a fair meeting.
Thus recommending Christ to you, and you to him, for ever-
more, I rest. Grace be with you.
YourSj in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LXXIX.
TO ROBERT GORDON, OF KNOXBREX.
My Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy and peace be multiplied'
upon you — I am almost wearying, yea, wondering, that ye write
not to me ; though I know it is not forgetfulness.
As for myself, I am every way well, all glory to God. 1 was
before at a plea with Christ, but it was bought by me, and unlawful,
because his whole providence was not yea and nay to my yea and
nay, and, because I believed Christ's outward look better than his
faithful promise. Yet he hath in patience waited on, whill I be come
to myself, and hath not taken advantage of my weak apprehensions
of his goodness, — great, and holy is his name ! He looketh to what I
desire to be, and not to what I am. One thing I have learned. If I
1 Acquisition by purchase or industry. 2 Are not able.
3 Discharge. 4 Difficult, hard.
5 That is, all manner of life, but the life of Christ in the soul.
Rutherford's letters. 139
had been in Christ, by way of adhesion only, as many branches
are, I should have been burnt to ashes, and this world would have
seen a suffering minister of Christ, (of something once in show,)
turned into unsavory salt. But my Lord Jesus had a good eye
that the Tempter should not play foul play, and blow out Christ's
candle. He took no thought of my stomach, and fretting and
grudging humor, but of his own grace. When he burnt the
house, he saved his own goods. And I believe that the Devil,
and the persecuting world shall reap no fruit of me, but burned
ashes : for he will see to his own gold, and save that from being
consumed with the fire.
Oh what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my
Lord Jesus ! who hath now let me see how good the wheat of
Christ is, that goeth through his mill, and his oven, to be made
bread for his own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and it
is more than grace, it is glory in its infancy. I now see that god-
liness is more than the outside, and this world's passments ' and
their buskings.^ Who knoweth the truth of grace without a
trial? Oh how little getteth Christ of us, but that which he win-
neth, (to speak so,) with much toil and pains ! And how soon
would faith freeze without a cross ! How many dumb crosses
have been laid upon my back, that had never a tongue to speak
the sweetness of Christ, as this hath? When Christ blesseth his
own crosses with a tongue, they breathe out Christ's love, wisdom,
kindness, and care of us. Why should I start at the plough of
my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul ? I know that
he is no idle husbandman, he purposeth a crop. Oh, that this
white withered lea-ground ^ were made fertile to bear a crop for
Him, by whom it is so painfully dressed ; and that this fallow-
ground were broken up ! Why was I (a fool !) grieved that he
put his garland, and his rose upon my head — the glory, and honor
of his faithful witnesses ? I desire now to make no more pleas *
with Christ. Verily he hath not put me to a loss by what I
suffer ; he oweth me nothing : for in my bonds how sweet and
comfortable have the thoughts of him been to me, wherein I find
a sufficient recompense of rewaid !
How blind are my adversaries, who sent me to a banqueting-
house, to a house-of-wine, to the lovely feasts of my lovely Lord
Jesus, and not to a prison, or place of exile ! Why should I
smother my Husband's honesty, or sin against His love ? or be a
niggard in giving out to others what I get for nothing ? — Brother,
eat with me, and give thanks. I charge you before God, that ye
speak to others, and invite them to help me to praise ! Oh my debt
of praise, how weighty it is, and how far run up ! Oh that others
would lend me to pay, and learn me to praise ! Oh I am a drowned
dyvour ! ^ Lord Jesus, take my thoughts for payments. Yet I am
in this hot summer-bhnk" with the tear in my eye; for, by reason
1 Gaudy trappings: passments are strips of lace sewed on garments.
2 Deckings. 3 Land in grass, as opposed to red, or tilled ground,
* Quarrels. s Bankrupt. " Gleam of the sun.
140 Rutherford's letters.
of my silence, sorrow, sorrow hath filled me : my harp is hanged
upon the willow trees, because I am in a strange land. I am still
kept in exercise with envious brethren ; my Mother hath borne
me a man of contention.
Write to me your mind anent Y. C. — I cannot forget him ; I
know not what God hath to do with him : — and your mind anent
my parishioners' behavior ; and how they are served in preach-
ing, or if there be a minister as yet thrust in upon them, which I
desire greatly to know, and which I much fear.
Dear brother, ye are in my heart, to live and to die with you.
Visit me with a letter. Pray for me. Remember my love to
your wife. Grace, grace be with you : and God, who heareth
prayer, visit you, and let it be unto you according to the prayers of
Your own brother, and Christ's prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, January 1, 1637.
LETTER LXXX.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
My Dearly-beloved Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you — I complain that Galloway is not kind to me on paper ; I
have received no letters these sixteen weeks, but two.
I am well. My prison is a palace to me, and Christ's banquet-
ing-house. My Lord Jesus is as kind as they call Him. Oh, that
all Scotland knew my case, and had part of my feast ! I charge
you, in the name of God, I charge you to believe. Fear not the
sons of men, the worms shall eat them. To pray and believe
now, when Christ seemeth to give you a nay-say,' is more than it
was before. Die believing, die with Christ's promise in your hand.
I desire, I request, I charge your Jiusband, and that town to
stand for the truth of the Gospel. Contend with Christ's enemies:
and I pray you to show all professors that you know my case.
Help me to praise. The ministers here envy me ; they will have
my prison changed. My mother hath borne me a man of conten-
tion, and one that striveth with the whole earth.
Remember my love to your husband. Grace be with you.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jan. 3, 1637.
LETTER LXXXL
TO MR. JOHN M E I N E
Worthy and Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you — I have been too long in answering your letter, but other
I A denial.
Rutherford's letters. 141
business took me up. I am here waiting, if the fair wind will
turn upon Christ's sails in Scotland ; and if deliverance be break-
ing out over this overclouded and benighted Kirk. Oh, that we
could contend, by prayers and supplications, with our Lord for that
effect! I know that He hath not given out His last doom against
this land. I have httle of Christ, in this prison, but groanings, and
longings, and desires. All my stock of Christ is some hunger for
Him, (and yet I cannot say but I am rich in that ;) my faith, and
hope, and holy practice of new obedience, are scarce worth the
speaking of: but blessed be my Lord, who taketh me, light, and
clipped, and noughty,' and feckless,^ as I am. I see that Christ
will not prig" with me, nor stand upon stepping-stones,* but com-
eth in at the broadside^ without ceremonies, or making it nice," to
make a poor ransomed one His own. Oh, that I could feed upon
His breathing, and kissing, and embracing, and upon the hopes
of my meeting and His, when love-letters shall not go betwixt us,
but He will be messenger himself ! But there is required patience
on our part, till the summer fruit in Heaven be ripe for us. It is
in the bud, but there be many things to do before our harvest
come : and we take ill with it, and can hardly endure to set our
paper-face to one of Christ's storms, and to go to Heaven with wet
feet, and pain, and sorrow. We love to carry a heaven to Heaven
with us, and would have two summers in one year, and no less
than two heavens ; but this will not do for us : — one, and such a
one ! may suffice us well enough : — the Man, Christ, got but one
only, and shall we have two ?
Remember my love, in Christ, to your father; and help me with
your prayers. If ye would be a deep divine, I recommend to you
sanctification. Fear Him, and He will reveal His Covenant to
you. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jan. 5, 1G37.
LETTER LXXXIL
TO cardoness, elder
Much Honored Sir, — -Grace, mercy and peace be to you — I
have longed to hear from you, and to know the estate of your soul,
and the estate of that people with you.
I. beseech you, sir, by the salvation of your precious soul, and
the mercies of God, to make good and sure work of your salvation,
and try upon what ground-stone'' ye have builded. Worthy, and
dear sir, if ye be upon sinking sand, a storm of death, and a blast
1 Of nought. 2 Worthless. 3 Chaffer.
4 To stand upon stepping-stones, to hesitate. s Frankly,
s To make it nice in doing a things to be very gingerly about the doing of it.
' Foundation.
142 Rutherford's letters.
will loose Christ and you, and wash you close ^ off the rock. Oh,
for the Lord's sake, look narrowly to the work!
Read over your life, with the light of God's day-light and sun ;
for salvation is not casten down at every man's door. It is good
to look to your compass, and all ye have need of, ere you take
shipping ; for no wind can blow yon back again. Remember,
when the race is ended, and the play either won or lost, and ye
are in the vitraost circle and border of time, and shall put your
foot within the march ^ of eternity, and all your good things of
this short night-dream shall seem to you like the ashes of a bleeze^
of thorns or straw, and your poor soul sliall be crying, " Lodging,
lodging, for God's sake !" then shall your soul be more glad at one
of your Lord's lovely, and homely smiles, than if ye had the char-
ters of three worlds for all eternity. Let pleasures and gain, will
and desires of this world, be put over into God's hands, as arrested
and fenced goods, that ye cannot intromit^ with. Now, when ye
are drinking the grounds of your cup, and ye are upon the utmost
end of the last link of time, and old age, like death's long shadow,
is casting a covering upon your days, it is no time to court this
vain life, and to set love and heart upon it. It is near after-sup-
per ;' seek rest and ease for your soul, in God through Christ,
Believe me that I find it to be hard wrestling to play fair with
Christ, and to keep good quarters with him, and to love him in
integrity and life, and to keep a constant course of sound, and solid
daily communion with Christ : temptations are daily breaking the
thread of that course, and it is not easy to cast a knot again, and
many knots make evil work. Oh, how fairly have many ships
been plying before the wind, that, in an hour's space, have been
lying in the sea-bottom ! How many professors cast a golden
lustre, as if tliey were pure gold, and yet are, under that skin and
cover, but base and reprobate metal ! And how many keep breath
in their race many miles, and yet come short of the prize and the
garland ! Dear sir, my soul would mourn in secret for you, if I
knew your case with God to be but false work : love to have you
anchored upon Christ maketh me fear your tottering and slips.
False under-water," not seen in the ground^ of an enlightened
conscience, is dangerous ; so is often failing, and sinning against
light. Know this, that those who never had sick nights or days
in conscience for sin, cannot have but such a peace with God as
will undercoat s and break the flesh again, and end in a sad war
at death. Oh, how fearfully are thousands beguiled Avith false
hide-grovvn-over old sins, as if the soul were cured and healed !
Dear sir, I always saw nature mighty, lofty, heady, and str^^ng
in you ; and, that it was more for j'^ou to be mortified and dead to
the world, than another common man. Ye will take a low ebb,
1 Altogether. 2 Boundary.
3 Anything which burns up suddenly, and is quickly consumed, with a blazing
flame. < Intermeddle.
5 The interval between supper and bed-time. s Bilge-water.
7 Bottom. 8 Fester, after having skinned over.
Rutherford's letters. 143
and a deep cut, and a long lance, to go to the bottom of your
wounds, in saving humiliation, to make you a won prey for Christ.
Be humbled ; walk softly; down, down, for God's sake, my dear,
and worthy brother, with your top-sail ; stoop, stoop ! it is a low
entry to go in at Heaven's gate. There is infinite justice in the
Party ye have to do with ; it is His nature not to acquit the guilty,
and the sinner. The law of God will not want one farthing of the
sinner. God forgetteth not both the cautioner ^ and the sinner ;
and every man must pay, either in his own person, (oh. Lord save
you from that payment !) or in his cautioner,' Christ. It is vio-
lence to corrupt nature for a man to be holy, to lye down under
Christ's feet, to quit will, pleasure, worldly love, earthly hope, and
an itching of heart after this farded*^ and over-gilded world, and to
be content that Christ trample upon all. Come in, come in to
Christ, and see what ye want, and find it in him : — he is the short
cut, (as we used to say,) and the nearest way to an outgate^ of
all your burdens. I dare avouch that ye shall be dearly welcome
to him ; my soul would be glad to take part of the joy ye should
have in him. I dare say that angels' pens, angels' "tongues, nay,
as many worlds of angels, as there are drops of water in all the
seas, and fountains, and rivers of the earth, cannot paint him out
to you. I think his sweetness, since I was a prisoner, hath swelled
upon me to the greatness of two heavens. Oh, for a soul, as wide
as the utmost circle of the highest Heaven that containeth all, to
contain his love! And yet I could hold little of it. Oh, world's
wonder ! Oh, if* my soul might but lye within the smell of his
love, suppose I could get no more but the smell of it ! Oh, but it
is long to that day when I shall have a free world of Christ's love !
Oh, what a sight to be up in Heaven, in that fair orchard of the
New Paradise ; and to see, and smell, and touch, and kiss, that
fair Field-flower, that ever-green Tree of Life ! His bare shadow
were enough for me; a sight of him would be the earnest of
Heaven to me. Fy, fy upon us ! that we have love lying rusting
beside us, or, which is worse, wasting upon some loathsome objects,
and that Christ shoidd lie his lone.s Wo, wo is me ! that sin hath
made so many madmen, seeking the fool's paradise, fire under ice,
and some good and desirable things, without, and apart from
Christ. Christ, Christ, nothing but Christ, can cool our love's
burning languor. O thirsty love ! wilt thou set Christ, the well
of life, to thy head, and drink thy fill. Drink, and spare not ;
drink love, and be drunken with Christ ! Nay, alas ! the distance
betwixt us and Christ is a death. Oh, if* we were clasped in
other's arms! We should never twin« again except Heaven
twinned '' and sundered us — and that cannot be.
I desire your children to seek this Lord. Desire them from me,
to be requested, for Christ's sake, to be blessed and happy, and to
come and take Christ, and all things with him. Let them beware
1 Surety. 2 Disguised with paint. 3 Egress. ^ Oh, that.
5 By himself alone. « Part. "< Parted.
144 Rutherford's letters.
of glassy and slippery youth, of foolish young notions, of worldly
lusts, of deceivable gain, of wicked company, of cursing, lying,
blaspheming, and foohsh talking : let them be filled with the Spirit,
acquaint themselves with daily praying, and with the store-house
of wisdom and comfort, the good word of God. Help the souls of
the poor people ; oh, that my Lord would bring me again among
them, that I might tell unco * and great tales of Christ to them !
Receive not a stranger to preach any other doctrine to them.
Pray for me, His prisoner of hope. I pray for you without ceas-
ing. I write my blessing, earnest prayers, the love of God, and the
sweet presence of Christ to you, and yours, and them.
Grace, grace, grace be with you.
Your lawful, and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LXXXIIL
to the earl of lothian.
Right Honorable, and my very Worthy, and Noble
Lord, — Out of the honorable and good report that I hear of your
Lordship's good-will and kindness, in taking to heart the honor-
able cause of Christ, and his afflicted church and wronged truth in
this land. I make bold to speak a word, on paper, to your Lord-
ship, at this distance, which 1 trust your Lordship will take in good
part. It is your Lordship's honor and credit, to put-to your hand,
(as ye do — all honor to God !) to the falling and tottering taber-
nacle of Christ, in this your mother-church, and to own Christ's
wrongs as your own wrongs. O blessed hand, which shall wipe
and dry the watery eyes of our weeping Lord, Jesus, now going
mourning in sackcloth in his members, in his spouse, in his truth,
and in the prerogative royal of his kingly power ! He needeth
not service and help from men ; but it pleaseth his wisdom to
make the wants and losses, the sores and wounds of his spouse a
field and an office-house for the zeal of his servants to exercise
themselves in ; therefore, my noble and dear Lord, go on, go on in
the strength of the Lord, against all opposition, to side with
wronged Christ. The defending and warding of strokes off Christ's
bride, the King's daughter, is hke a piece of the rest of the way to
Heaven, knotty, rough, stormy, and full of thorns. I Many would
follow Christ, but with a reservation that, by open proclamation,
Christ would cry down crosses, and cry up fair weather, and a
summer sky and sun, till we were all fairly landed at Heaven. I
know that your Lordship hath not so learned Christ, but that ye
intend to fetch Heaven, suppose that your father were standing in
your way ; and to take it with the wind on your face ; for so both
storm and wind were on the fair face of your lovely Fore-runner,
1 Strange.
Rutherford's letters. 145
Christ, all his way. It is possible that the success answer not
your desire, in this worthy cause : what then ? Duties are ours,
but events are the Lord's ; and I hope, if your Lordship, and
others with 3^ou, will go on to dive to the lowest ground and bottom
of the knavery and perfidious treachery to Christ of the accursed,
and wretched prelates, the Antichrist's first-born, and the first fruit
of his foul womb, and shall deal with our Sovereign, (law going
before you,) for the reasonable, and impartial hearing of Christ's
bill of complaints, and set yourselves singly to seek the Lord and
his face, that your righteousness shall break through the clouds
which prejudice hath drawn over it, and that ye shall, in the
strength of the Lord, bring our banished, and departing Lord Jesus
home again to his sanctuary. Neither must your Lordship advise
with flesh and blood in this ; but wink, and in the dark reach your
hand to Christ, and follow him. Let not men's fainting discourage
you, neither be afraid of men's canny • wisdom, who. in this storm,
take the nearest shore, and go to the lee and calm side of the
Gospel, and hide Christ, if ever they had him, in their cabinets,
as if they were ashamed of him, or, as if Christ were stolen wares,
and would blush before the sun.
My very dear, and noble Lord, ye have rejoiced the hearts of
many, that ye have made choice of Christ, and his Gospel, whereas
such great temptations do stand in your way : but I love your
profession the better, that it endureth winds. If we knew our-
selves well, to want temptations is the greatest temptation of all.
Neither is father nor mother, nor court, nor honor, in this over-
lustred world, with all its paintry^ and farding,^ anything else,
when they are laid in the balance with Christ, but feathers,
shadows, night-dreams, and straws. Oh, if this world knew the
excellency, sweetness, and beauty of that high and lofty One, that
Fairest among the sons of men, verily they would see that if their
love were bigger than ten heavens, all in circles beyond each other,
it were all too little for Christ, our Lord ! I hope that your choice
will not repent you, when life shall come to that twilight betwixt
time and eternity, and ye shall see the utmost border of time, and
shall draw the curtain, and look into eternity, and shall one day
see God take the heavens in his hands, and fold them together
like an old worn-out garment, and set on fire this clay part of the
creation of God, and consume away, into smoke and ashes, the
idol-hope of poor fools, who think that there is not a better coun-
try than this low country of dying clay. Children cannot make
comparison aright betwixt this life and that which is to come;
and, therefore, the babes of this world, who see no better, mould,
in their own brain, a heaven of their own coining, because they
see no further than the nearest side of time.
I dare lay in pawn my hope of Heaven, that this reproached
way is the only way of peace. I find it is the Avay that the Lord
hath sealed with his comforts, now in my bonds for Christ ; and I
1 Prudent. 2 Painted decorations. 3 Painted disguises.
10
146 Rutherford's letters.
verily esteem, and find chains and fetters for that lovely One,
Christ, to be watered ' over with sweet consolations, and the love-
smiles of that lovely Bridegroom, for whose coming we wait.
And when he cometh, then shall the blacks and whites of all men
come before the sun ; then shall the Lord put a final decision
upon the pleas that Zion hath with her adversaries. And as
fast as time posteth away, (which neither sitteth, nor standeth,
nor sleepeth,) as fast is our hand-breadth of this short winter-
night flying away, and the sky of our long-lasting day drawing
near its breaking.
Except your Lordship be pleased to plead for me, against the
tyranny of prelates, I shall he forgotten in this prison ; for they
did shape my doom according to their new, lawless canons, which
is, that a deprived minister shall be utterly silenced, and not
preach at all ; which is a cruelty, contrary to their own former
practices.
Now, the only wise God, the very God of peace, confirm,
strengthen, and establish your Lordship upon the Stone laid in
Zion, and be with you, forever.
Your Lordship's,
At all respectful obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LXXXIV.
TO JEAN BROWN.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you — I long to hear
how your soul prospereth. I earnestly desire your on-going to-
ward your country. I know that ye see your day melteth away
by little and little, and that in a short time ye shall be put beyond
time's bovmds ; for life is a post that standeth not still, and our
joys here are born weeping, rather than laughing, and they die
weeping. Sin, sin, this body of sin and corruption embittereth,
and poisoneth all our enjoyments. Oh, that I were where I shall
sin no more ! Oh, to be freed of these chains and iron fetters,
which we carry about with us ! Lord, loose the sad prisoners.
Who of the children of God have not cause to say, tliat they have
their fill of this vain life, and like a full and sick stomach, to wish
at mid-supper, that the supper were ended, and the table drawn,
that the sick man might win^ to bed, and enjoy rest ? We have
cause to tire at mid-supper, of the best messes that this world can
dress up for us ; and to cry to God, that he would remove the
table, and put the sin-sick souls to rest with himself Oh, for a
long play-day with Christ, and our long-lasting vacance^ of rest !
Glad may their souls be that are safe over the firth, ^ Christ having
1 Plated. 2 Get. 3 Vacation. * Frith, estuary.
Rutherford's letters. 147
paid the fraught.' Happy are they who have passed their hard
and wearisome time of apprenticeship, and are now freemen and
citizens in that joyful, high city, the New Jerusalem. Alas ! that
we should be glad of, and rejoice in our fetters, and our prison-
house, and this dear inn, a life of sin, where we are absent from
our Lord, and so far from our home. Oh, that we could get bonds
and law-suretyship of our love, that it fasten not itself on these
clay-dreams, these clay-shadows, and worldly vanities ! We
might be oftener seeing what they are doing in Heaven, and our
hearts more frequently upon our sweet treasure above. We smell
of the smoke of this lower house of the earth, because our hearts
and our thoughts are here. If we could haunt up with God, we
should smell of Heaven and of our country above, and we should
look like our country, and like strangers or people not born or
brought up hereaway.^ Our crosses would not bite upon us ^ if
we were heavenly-minded. I know of no obligation which the
saints have to this world, seeing we fare but upon the smoke of
it; and, if there be any smoke in the house, it bloweth upon our
eyes. All our part of the table is scarce worth a drink of water ;
and, when we are stricken, we dare not weep, but steal our grief
away betwixt our Lord and us, and content ourselves with stolen
sorrow behind backs. God be thanked that we have many things
that so stroke us against the hair, as we may pray, " God keep
our better home, God bless our Father's house ; and not this
smoke, that bloweth us to seek our best lodging." I am sure that
this is the best fiuit of the cross, when we, from the hard fare of
the dear inn, cry the more, that God would send a fair wind, to
land us, hungered and oppressed strangers, at the door of our Fa-
ther's house, Avhich now is made in Christ our kindly heritage.
Oh ! then, let us pall up the stakes and stoups* of our tent, and
take our tent on our back, and go with our flitting ^ to our best
home ; for here we have no continuing city.
I am waiting in hope here, to see what my Lord will do with
me. Let him make of me what he pleaseth ; providing he make
glory to himself out of me, I care not. I hope, yea, I am now
sure, that I am for Christ, and all that I can, or may make is for
him. I am his everlasting debtor, or dyvour,^ and still shall be ;
for, alas, I have nothing for him, and he getteth but little service
of me ! Pray for me, that our Lord would be pleased to give me
house-room, that I may serve him in the calling which he hath
called me unto.
Grace be witli you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
1 Freight. 2 in this present life.
3 Would not be able even to make the least mark with their teeth upon us.
i Posts. 5 Furniture which may be removed from one residence to another.
6 Bankrupt.
148 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER LXXXV.
TO JOHN KENNEDY, BAILLIE OF AYR.
Worthy, and Well-beloved Brother, — Grace, mercy and
peace be unto you — I am yet waiting what our Lord will do for
his afflicted Church, and for my re-entry to my Lord's house. Oh
that I could hear the forfeiture of Christ, (now casten out of his
inheritance,) recalled, and taken off by open proclamation ; and
that Christ were restored to be a free-holder and a landed heritor ^
in Scotland: and that the courts fenced'' in the name of the bas-
tard prelates, (their godfather the Pope's bailiffs and sheriffs) were
cried down ! Oh how sweet a sight were it, to see all the Tribes
of the Lord in this land fetching home again oin- banished King,
Christ, to his own palace, his sanctuary, and his throne ! I shall
think it mercy to my soul, if my faith will out-watch all this win-
ter night, and not nod nor slumber till my Lord's summer-day
dawn upon me. It is much if faith, and hope, in the sad nights
of our heavy trial, escape with a whole skin, and without crack,
or crook. I confess that unbelief hath not reason to be either
father, or mother to it, (for unbelief is always an irrational thing ;)
but how can it be, but that such weak eyes as ours must cast
water in a great smoke, or, that a weak head should not turn
giddy when the water runneth deep, and strong ? But God be
thanked, that Christ, in his children, can endure a stress and a
storm, howbeit soft nature would fall down in pieces.
Oh that I had that confidence as to rest on this, though he
grind me into small powder, and bray me into dust, and scatter
the dust to the four winds of heaven, that my Lord would gather
up the powder, and make me up a new vessel again, to bear
Christ's name to the world ! I am sure that love, bottomed, and
seated upon the faith of his love to me, would desire and endure
this, and would even claim, and threep' kindness upon Christ's
strokes, and kiss his love-glooms,* and both spell, and read salva-
tion upon the wounds made by Christ's sweet hands. Oh that I
had but a promise made from the mouth of Christ of his love to
me ! and then, howbeit my faith were as tender as paper, I think
longing, and dwining,^ and greening® of sick desires would cause
it to bide'' out the siege till the Lord came to fill the soul with his
love ; and I know, also, that, in that case, faith would bide " green
and sappy at the root, even at mid-winter, and stand out against
all storms. However it be. I know that Christ winneth Heaven
in despite of Hell. But I owe as many praises and thanks to free
grace, as would lye betwixt me and the utmost border of the high-
est Heaven, suppose ten thousand heavens were all laid above
1 A proprietor of land. 2 Constituted and opened.
3 To tlireep, pertinaciously to persevere in asserting, in contradiction to denial.
* Love-frowns. 5 Pining. 6 Longing with greedy desiie.
I' Hold. 8 Continue.
Rutherford's letters. 149
other. But oh ! I have nothing that can hire, or bud • grace ; for
if grace would take hire it were no more grace ; but all our stabil-
ity, and the strength of our salvation is anchored and fastened
upon free grace ; and I ara sure that Christ hath, by his death
and blood, casten'^ the knot so fast, that the fingers of the devils,
and hell-fuls of sins cannot loose it : and that bond of Christ,
(that never yet was, nor ever shall, nor can be registrated,^) stand-
eth surer than Heaven, or the days of Heaven, as that sweet
pillar of the Covenant whereon we all hang. Christ, with all his
little ones under his two wings, and in the compass or circle of his
arms, is so sure, that cast him and them into the ground^ of the
sea, he shall come up again, and not lose one. An odd one can-
not, nor shall be lost in the telling.
This was always God's aim, since Christ came into the play
betwixt him and us, to make men dependent creatures, and, in
the work of our salvation, to put created strength, and arms, and
legs of clay quite out of play, and out of office and court ; and
now God hath substituted, in our room, and accepted his Son, the
Mediator, for us, and all that we can make. If this had not been,
I would have skinked over^ and foregone my part of Paradise and
salvation, for a breakfast of dead, moth-eaten earth ; but now I
would not give it, nor let it go, for more than I can tell ; — and
truly they are silly fools, and ignorant of Christ's worth, and so,
full ill-trained and tutored, who tell Heaven and Christ over the
board, for two feathers, or two straws of the Devil's painted plea-
sures, only lustred on the outer side. This is our happiness now,
that our reckonings at night, when eternity shall come upon us,
cannot be told : we shall be so far gainers, and so far from being
super-expended, (as the poor fools of this world are, who give out
their money, and get in but black hunger,) that angels cannot
lay our counts, nor sum our advantage and incomes. Who know-
eth how far it is to the bottom of our Christ's fulness, and to the
ground * of our heaven ? Who ever weighed Christ in a pair of
balances ? Who hath seen the foldings and plies, and the heights
and depths of that glory which is in him, and kept for us ? Oh
for such a heaven as to stand afar off, and see, and love, and long
for him, whill time's thread be cut, and this great work of crea-
tion dissolved, at the coming of our Lord !
Now to his grace I recommend you. I beseech you also, to
pray for a re-entry to me into the Lord's house, if .it be his good
will.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jan. 6, 1637.
I Bribe. 2 Tied. 3 Noted, protested. i Bottom.
5 Formally renounced : an allusion to the practice of a seller's drinking the health
of a purchaser, and wishing him luck in his bargain.
150 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER LXXXVI.
TO ELIZABETH KENNEDY.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I have long
had a purpose of writing unto you, but I have been hindered. I
heartily desire that ye would mind your country, and consider to
what airth' your soul setteth its face; for all come not home at
night, who suppose that they have set their face heavenward. It
is a woful thing to die, and miss Heaven, and to lose house-room
with Cliri&t at night ; — it is an evil journey where travellers are
benighted in the fields. I persuade myself that thousands shall
be deceived and ashamed of their hope : because they cast their
anchor in sinking sands, they must lose it. Till now, I knew not
the pain, labor, nor difficulty that there is to win at^ home: nor
did I. understand so well, before this, what that meaneth, "The
righteous shall scarcely be saved." Oh, how many a poor profes-
sor's candle is blown out, and never lighted again ! I see that
ordinary profession, and to be ranked amongst the children of
God, and to have a name among men, is now thought good
enough to carry professors to Heaven ; but certainly a name is
but a name, and will never bide^ a blast of God's storm. I coun-
sel you not to give your soul, or Christ rest, nor your eyes sleep,
till ye have gotten something that will bide the fire, and stand out
the storm. I am sure, that if my one foot were in Heaven, and,
if then, he should say, "Fend* thyself, I will hold my grips^ of
thee no longer," I should go no farther, but presently fall down in
as many pieces of dead nature.
They are happy for evermore who are over head and ears in
the love of Christ, and know no sickness but love-sickness for
Christ, and feel no pain but the pain of an absent, and hidden
Well-beloved. We run our souls out of breath, and tire them in
coursing and galloping after our night-dreams, (such are the rov-
ings of our miscarrying hearts,) to get some created good thing in
this life, and on this side of death. We would fain stay and spin
out a heaven to ourselves, on this side of the water ; but sorrow,
want, changes, crosses, and sin are both woof and warp in that
ill-spun web. Oh, how sweet and dear are these thoughts that
are still upon the things which are above ! and how happy are
they who are longing to have little sand in their glass, and to
have time's thread cut, and can cry to Christ, " Lord Jesus, have
over f come and fetch the dreary passenger !" I wish that our
thoughts were more frequently than they are, upon our country.
Oh, but Heaven casteth a sweet smell afar off, to those who have
spiritual smelling ! God hath made many fair flowers, but the
fairest of them all is Heaven, and the flower of all flowers is
' Point of the compass. 2 Reach. 3 Endure.
* Shift for. 5 Keep hold. 6 Have done.
Rutherford's letters. 151
Christ. Oh ! why do we not flee up to that lovely One? Alas,
that there is such a scarcity of love, and of lovers of Christ
amongst us all ! Fy, fy upon us, who love fair things, as fair
gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honors, and fair
persons, and do not pine and melt away with love to Christ ! Oh,
would to God, I had more love for his sake ! Oh, for as much as
would lye betwixt me and Heaven, for his sake ! Oh, for as much
as would go round about the earth, and over the Heaven, yea, the
Heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds, that I might let all
out upon fair, fair, only fair Christ ! But alas, I have nothing for
him, yet he hath much for me. It is no gain to Christ, that he
getleth my little feckless, ^ span-length, and hand-breadth of love.
If men would have something to do with their hearts and their
thoughts, that are always rolling up and down like men with oars
in a boat, after sinful vanities, they might find ^eat and sweet
employment to their thoughts upon Christ. If those frothy, fluc-
tuating, and restless hearts of ours would come all about Christ,
and look into his lOve, to bottomless love, to the depth of mercy,
to the unsearchable riches of his grace, to inquire after, and search
into the beauty of God in Christ, they would be swallowed up in
the depth and height, length and breadth of his goodness. Oh,
if2 men would draw the curtains, and look into the inner side of
the ark, and behold how the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in
him bodily ! Oh ! who would not say, "Let me die, let me die
ten times, to see a sight of him?" Ten thousand deaths were no
great price to give for him. I am sure that sick, fainting love
would heighten the market, and raise the price to the double for
him. But, alas, if men and angels were rouped,' and sold at the
dearest price, they would not all buy a night's love, or a four-and-
twenty-hours' sight of Christ. Oh, how happy are they who get
Christ for nothing ! God send me no more for my part of para-
dise than Christ; — and surely I were rich enough, and as well
heavened as the best of them, if Christ were my heaven.
I can write no better thing to you, than to desire you, if ever ye
laid Christ in a count, to take him up and count him again ; and
weigh him over again and agaiu : and after this, have no other to
court your love, and to woo your soul's delight, than Christ. He
will be found worthy of all your love, howbeit it should swell upon
you from the earth to the uppermost circle of the Heaven of
heavens.
To our Lord Jesus, and his love, I commend you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
1 Feeble, worthless. 2 oh, that. 3 Sold by public auction.
152 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER LXXXVIL
TO JONET KENNEDY.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, aad peace be unto you — Ye are not
a little obliged to His rich grace, who hath separated you for him-
self, and for the promised inheritance with tlie saints in light, from
this condemned and guilty world. Hold fast Cluist, contend for
him : it is a lawful plea' to go to holding and drawing for Christ ;
and it is not possible to keep Christ peaceably, having once gotten
him, except the Devil w^ere dead. It must be your resolution to
set your face against Satan's northern teiupests and storms, for
salvation : — nature would have heaven come to us while sleeping
in our beds. We would all buy Christ, so being we might make
price ourselves ; but Christ is worth more blood and lives than
either ye or I have to give him. When Ave shall come home, and
enter to the possession of our Brother's fair Kingdom, and when
our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and
when we shall look back to pains and sufferings, then shall we see
life, and sorrow, to be less than one' step or stride from a prison to
glory ; and that our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of
our first night's welcome-home to Heaven. Oh, what then will
be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses ! Oh, how weighty,
and of what worth shall every one of Christ's love-smiles be ! Oh,
when once he shall thrust a wearied travellers head betwixt his
blessed breasts, the poor soul will think one kiss of Christ hath
fully paid home forty, or fifty years' wet feet, and all its sore -
hearts, and light sufferings, it had in following after Christ ! Oh,
thrice-blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with
dreams, shadow^s, feckless ^ things, night- vanities, and night-fancies
of a miserable life of sin ! Shame on us, who sit still, fettered with
the love and liking of the loan of a piece of dead clay ! Oil, poor
fools, who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair-
weather, and smooth promises, and rotten worm-eaten hopes !
May not the Devil laugh to see us give out our souls, and get in
but corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin? Oh for a sight of
eternity's glory, and a little tasting of the Lamb's marriage-sup-
per! Half a draught, or a drop of the wine of consolation, that is
up at our banqueting house, out of Christ's own hand, would make
our stomachs loathe the brown bread, and the sour drink of a mis-
erable life. Oh, how far are we bereaved of w^it, to chase, and
hunt, and run, till our souls be out of breath, after a condemned
happiness of our own making ! And do we not sit far in our own
light, to make it a matter of bairns' play, to skink and drink over ^
paradise, and the heaven that Christ did sweat for, even for a blast
1 Quarrel. 2 Achin^. 3 Unsubstantial.
* To skink and drink over, formally and finally to renounce all claim to ; in allusion
to the practice of a seller's drinking the health of a purchaser, and wishing him luck
of his bargain.
Rutherford's letters. 153
of smoke, and for Esau's morning breakfast? Oh that we were
out of ourselves, and dead to this world, and this world dead and
crucified to us ! And, when we should be close ^ out of love and
conceit of any masked and farded- lover whatsoever, then Christ
would win and conquer to himself a lodging in the inmost yolk
of our heart ; then Christ should be our night-song, and our morn-
ing-song : then tiie very noise and din of our Well-beloved's feet,
when he cometh, and his first knock or rap at the door should be
as news of two heavens to us. Oh that our eyes and our soul's
smelling should go after a blasted and sun-burnt flower, even this
plastered, fair outsided^ world ; and then we have neither eye, nor
smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ,
the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest Rose that ever God planted !
Oh, let some of us die to smell the fragrance of him ! and let my
part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for evermore, pro-
viding I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ ! I know that
it is sometimes at this, "Lord, what wilt thou have for Christ?"
But, O Lord, canst thou be budded, and propined* with any gift
for Christ? O Lord, can Christ be sold? or rather, may not a
poor needy sinner have him for nothing? If I can get no more,
oh, let me be pained to all eternity, with longing for him ! The
joy of hungering for Christ should be my heaven for evermore.
Alas, that I cannot draw souls and Christ together ! But I desire
the coming of his Kingdom, and that Christ, as I assuredly hope
he will, would come upon withered Scotland, as rain upon the
new-mown grass. Oh, let the King come ! Oh, let his Kingdom
come ! Oh, let their eyes rot in their eye-holes,^ who will not re-
ceive him home again to reign and rule in Scotland.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LXXXVIII.
TO A CHRISTIAN GENTLEWOMAN.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you — Though not
acquainted, yet at the desire of a Christian brother, I thought
good to write a line unto you, entreating you, in the Lord Jesus,
under yt)ur trials, to keep an ear open to Christ, who can speak
for himself, howbeit your visitations, and your own sense should
dream hard things of His love and favor. Our Lord never get-
teth so kind a look of us, nor our love in such a degree, nor our
faith in such a measure of steadfastness, as he getteth out of the
furnace of our tempting fears and sharp trials. I verily believe,
1 Altogether. 2 Painted.
3 Empty, hollow; having nothing but an outside.
* Bribed and presented. s Zech xiv. 13.
154 Rutherford's letters.
(and too sad proofs in me say no less,) that if our Lord would
grind our whorish lust into powder, the very old ashes of our cor-
ruption would take life again, and live, and hold us under so much
bondage, that may humble us, and make us sad, till we be in that
country where we shall need no physic at all. Oh, what violent
means doth our Lord use to gain us to Him, a^ if, indeed, we were
a prize worthy his fighting for ! And be sure, if leading would
do the turn, that he would not use pulling of the hair, and draw--^
ing : but the best of us would bide ^ a strong pull of our Lord's right
arm ere we follow Him. Yet I say not this as if our Lord always
measured afflictions by so many ounce-weights, answerable to the
grain- weights of our guiltiness : I know that He dotii in many, (and
possibly in you,) seek nothing so much as faith, that can endure
summer and winter in their extremity. Oh, how precious to the
Lord are faith and love, that when threshed, beaten, and chased
away, and boasted,*^ (as it were,) by God himself, doth yet look
warm-like, love-like, kind-like, and life-like, home-over^ to Christ,
and would be in at him, ill and well as it may be !
Think it not much, that your husband, or the nearest to you in
the world, proveth to have the bowels and mercy of the ostrich,
hard, and rigorous, and cruel : for, (Psalm xxvii. 10,) the Lord
taketh up such fallen ones as these. I could not wish a sweeter
life, or more satisfying expressions of kindness, till I be up at that
Prince of kindness, than the Lord's saints find, when the Lord
taketh up men's refuse, and lodgeth this world's outlaws, whom
no man seeketh after. His breath is never so hot. His love cast-
eth never such a flame, as when this world, and those who should
be the helpers of our joy, cast water on our coal. It is a sweet
thing to see them cast out, and God take in ; and to see them
throw us away, as the refuse of men, and God take us up as His
jewels and His treasure. Often He maketh gold of dross, as once
He made the cast-away Stone, the Stone rejected by the builders,
the Head of the corner. The princes of this world would not have
our Lord Jesus as a pinning^ in the wall, or to have any place in
the building ; but the Lord made Him the Master-stone of power
and of place. God be thanked, that this world has not power to
cry us down so many pounds, as rulers cry down light gold, or
light silver : we shall stand for as much as our Master-coiner,
Christ, whose coin, arms, and stamp we bear, will have us — Christ
hath no miscarrying balance. Thank your Lord, who chaseth
your love through two kingdoms, and followeth you and it over
sea, to have you for himself, as he speaketh, (Hos. iii.) For God
layeth up his saints, as the wale and the choice ^ of all the world
for himself; and this is like Christ and His love. Oh, what in
Heaven, or out of Heaven, is comparable to the smell of Christ's
garments ! Nay, suppose that our Lord would manifest His art,
and make ten thousand heavens of good and glorious things, and
1 Stand. 2 Threatened with looks or gestures. 3 Homewards.
* A small stone used in building to fill up the interstices between larger stones.
6 The very best selection that could be made.
Rutherford's letters. 155
of new joys, devised out of the deep of infinite wisdom, He could
not make the hke of Christ ; for Christ is God, and God cannot
be made : and, therefore, let us hold us with Christ, howbeit
we might have our wale and will' of a host of lovers, as many
as tinee heavens could contain. Ob, tbat He and we were to-
gether ! Oh, when Christ and ye shall meet about the utmost
march,*^ and borders of time, and the entry into eternity, ye shall
see heaven in his face at the first look, and salvation and glory
sitting in his countenance, and betwixt his eyes. Faint not ;
the miles to Heaven are but few and short ; he is making a
green bed (as the word speaketh. Cant, i.,) of love for himself
and you. There are many heads lying in Christ's bosom, but
there is room for yours amongst the rest ; and, therefore, go
on, and let hope go before you. Sin not in your trials, and the
victory is yours. Pray, wrestle, and believe, and ye shall over-
come and prevail with God, as Jacob did. No windlestraws,^ no
bits of clay, no temptations, which are of no longer life than an
hour, will then be able to withstand you, when once ye have pre-
vailed with God.
Help me with your prayers, that it would please the Lord to
give me house room again, to speak of His righteousness in the
great congregation, if it may seem good in His sight.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 6, 1637.
LETTER LXXXIX.
TO MY LORD CRAIGHALL.
My Lord,— I received Mr. L.'s letter with your Lordship's, and
his learned thoughts in the matter of ceremonies. I owe respect to
the man's learning, for that I hear him to be opposed to Arminian
heresies : but, (with reverence of that worthy man,) I wonder to
hear such popish-like expressions as he hath in his letter, as
"Your Lordship may spare doublings, when the King and Church
have agreed in the settling of such orders ; and the Cluuch's di-
rection in things indifferent and circumstantial, (as if indifferent
and circumstantial were all one,) should be the rule of every pri-
vate Christian." I only viewed the papers two hours' space, the
bearer hastening me to write. I find the worthy man not so
seen- in this controversy, as some turbulent men of our country,
whom he calleth refusers of conformity : and let me say it, I am
more confirmed in nonconformity, when I see such a great wit
play the agent so slenderly ; but I will lay the blame on the
1 Free and ample liberty of choice. 2 Boundary.
3 Withered stalks of grass; metaphorically, weak and worthless things.
< Versant, skilled.
156 Rutherford's letters.
weakness of the cause, not on the meanness of Mr. L.'s learning.
I have been, and still am confident, that Britain cannot answer
one argument a scandalo : and I longed mucli to hear Mr. L.
speak to the cause : and I would say, if some ordinary divine had
answered as Mr. L. doth, that he understood not the nature of a
Scandal ; but I dare not vilify that worthy man so. I am now
upon the heat of some other employment. I shall, (but God wil-
ling,) answer this, to the satisfying of any not prejudiced.
I will not say that every one is acquaiAted with the reason, in
my letter, from God's presence and bright shining face, in suffer-
ing for this cause. Aristotle never knew the medium of the con-
clusion : and Christ saith few know it (see Rev. ii. 17.) I am
sure that conscience standing in awe of the Almighty, and fearing
to make a httle hole in the bottom for fear of under-wat^r, is a
strong medium to hold off an erroneous conclusion in the least
wing or litli* of sweet, sweet truth, that concerneth the royal pre-
rogative of our kingly and highest Lord Jesus; and my witness
is in Heaven, that I saw neither pleasure, nor profit, nor honor,
to hook me, or catch me, in entering into prison for Christ ; but
the wind on my face for the present ; and if I liad loved to sleep
in a whole skin, with the ease and present delight that I saw on
this side of sun and moon, I should have lived at ease, and in
good hopes to fare as well as others. The Lord knoweth that I
preferred preaching of Christ, and still do, to anything next to
Christ hhnself. And their new canons took my one, my only
joy, from me, which was to m6 as the poor man's one eye, that
had no moe ; and, alas ! there is little lodging in their hearts for
pity or mercy, to pluck out a poor man's one eye for a thing in-
different : id est, for knots of straw, and things, (as they mean,)
off the way to Heaven. I desire not that my name take journey,
and go a pilgrim to Cambridge, for fear I come into the ears of
authority — I am sufficiently burnt already.
In the mean time, be pleased to try if the Bishop of St. An-
drew's, and Glasgow, (Galloway's Ordinary.) will be pleased to
abate from the heat of their wrath, and let me go to my charge.
Few know the heart of a prisoner; yet I hope that the Lord will
hew his own glory out of as knotty timber as I am. Keep Christ,
my dear and worthy Lord. Pretended paper-arguments from
angering the Motlier-cliurch, that can reel, and nod, and stagger,
are not of such weight as peace with the Father, and Husband.
Let the wife gloom,'^ I care not, if the Husband laugh.
Remember my service to my Lord your father, and mother,
and your lady. Grace be with you.
Yours, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jan. 21, 1G37.
1 Joint. - Knit her brows.
Rutherford's letters. 157
LETTER XC.
to john kennedy.
My Loving, and most Affectionate Brother in Christ,
— I salute you witli grace, mercy and peace from God, our Father,
and from our Lord, Jesus Christ.
I promised to write to you, and although late enough, yet I
now make it good. I heard with grief of your great danger of
perishing by the sea, and of your merciful deliverance with joy.
Sure I am, brother, that Satan will letwe no stone unrolled, as
the proverb is, to roll you off your Rock, or at least to shake and mi-
settle you : for, at that same time, the mouths of wicked men were
opened in hard speeches against you, by land, and the Prince
of the power of the air was angry with you, by sea. See
then how much ye are obliged to that malicious Murderer, who
would beat you with two rods at one time ; but, blessed be God !
his arm is short ; if the sea and winds would have obeyed him,
ye had never come to land. Thank your God, who saith, (Rev.
i. 18,) " I have the keys of Hell, and of death ;" (Deut. xxxii. 39,)
" I kill and I make alive ;" (1 Sam. ii. 6,) " The Lord bringeth
down to the grave, and bringeth up." If Satan were jailer, and
had the keys of death and of the grave, they should be stored with
moe prisoners. Ye were knocking at these black gates, and ye
found the doors shut ; and we do all welcome you back again.
I trust that ye know it is not for nothing that ye are sent to us
again. The Lord knew, that ye had forgotten something that
was necessary for your journey ; that your armor was not as yet
thick enough against the stroke of death. Now, in the strength
of Jesus dispatch yoyr business ; that debt is not forgiv^en, but
fristed ; ' death hath not bidden you farewell, but hath only left
you for a short season. End your journey, ere the night come
upon you: have all in readiness against the time that ye must
sail through that black and impetuous Jordan ; and Jesus, Jesus,
who knoweth both those depths and the rocks, and all the coasts,
be your pilot. The last tide will not wait for you one moment :
if ye forget anything, when your sea is full, and your foot in that
ship, there is no returning again to fetch it. What ye do amiss
in your life to-day, ye may amend it to-morrow : for as many suns
as God maketh to arise upon you, ye have a&many new lives;
but ye can die but once, and if ye mar or spill ^ that business, ye
cannot come back to mend that piece of work again. No man
sinneth twice in dying ill ; as we die but once, so we die but ill or
well once. Ye see how the number of your months is written in
God's book ; and as one of the Lord's hirelings, ye must work
till the shadow of the evening come upon you, and ye shall run
your glass even to the last pickle ^ of sand. Fulfil your course
1 Credited. 2 Spoil. 3 Grain.
158 Rutherford's letters.
with joy ; for we take nothing to the grave with us, but a good
or evil conscience. And, aUhough the sky clear after this storm,
yet clouds will engender another.
Ye contracted witli Christ, I hope, when first ye began to fol-
low him, that ye would bear his cross. Fulfil your part of the
contract with patience, and break not to Jesus Christ. Be hon-
est, brother, in your bargaining with him: for who knoweth
better how to bring up children than our God? For, (to lay
aside his knowledge, of tlie Avhich there is no finding out,) he
hath been practised in bringing up his heirs these five thousand
years, and his bairns are all well brought up. and many of them
are honest men now at home, up in their own house in Heaven,
and are entered heirs \o their Father's inheritance. Now, the
form of his bringing-up was by cliastisements, scourging, correct-
ing, nurturing : and see if he maketh exception of any of his
bairns, (Rev. iii. 19 ; Heb. xii. 7, 8.) No : his eldest Son, and
his Heir, Jesus, is not excepted, (Heb. ii. 10.) Suffer we must :
ere we were born, God decreed it; and it is easier to complain of
his decree, than to change it. It is true, terrors of conscience
cast us down ; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot
be raised up again ; fears and doubtings shake us ; and yet with-
out fears and doubtings we would soon sleep, and lose our grips
of Christ : tribulation and temptations will almost loosen us at
the root ; and yet, without tribulations and temptations, we can now
no more grow, than herbs or corn without rain. Sin and Satan,
and the world, will say, and cry in our ears, that we have a hard
reckoning to make in judgment; and yet none of these three,
except they lie, dare say in our face, that our sin can change the
tenor of the New Covenant. Forward then, dear brother, and
lose not your grips. Hold fast the truth ; for the world, sell not
one dram-weight of God's truth, especially now, when most men
measure truth by time, like young seamen, setting their compass
by a cloud : for now Time is father and mother to Truth, in the
thoughts and practices of our evil time. The God of truth estab-
lish us ; for, alas ! now there are none to comfort the prisoners of
hope, and the mourners in Zion. We can do little, except pray and
mourn for Joseph in the stocks. And let their tongue cleave to the
roof of their mouth who forget Jerusalem now in her day : and the
Lord remember Edom, and render to him as he hath done to us.
Now, brother, I shall not weary you ; but I entreat you to re-
member my dearest love to Mr. David Dickson, with whom I have
small acquaintance ; yet, I bless the Lord, I know that lie both
prayeth and doeth for our dying Kirk. Remember my dearest love
to John Stuart, whom I love in Christ; and show him from me,
that I do always remember him, and hope for a meeting. The
Lord, Jesus, establish him more and more, though he be already
a strong man in Christ. Remember my heartiest affection in
Christ to William Rodger, whom I also remember to God. I wish
that the first news I hear of him, and you, and all that love our
common Saviour, in those bounds, may be, that they are so knit
Rutherford's letters. 159
and linked, and kindly fastened in love with the Son of God, that
ye may say, " Now ii" we would ever so fain escape out of Christ's
hands, yet love hath so bound us, that we cannot get our hands
free again ; he hath so ravished our hearts, that tliere is no loos-
ening of his grips; the chains of his soul-ravishing love are so
strong, that the grave nor death will break them." I hope, brother,
yea, I doubt not of it, that ye lay me, and my first entry to the
Lord's vineyard, and my flock, before Him who hath put me into
his work ; as the Lord knoweth, since first I saw you, 1 have been
mindful of you. Marion Macknaught doth remember most heartily
her love to you, and to John Stuart. Blessed be the Lord ! that
in God's mercy, I found in tliis country such a woman, to whom
Jesus is dearer than her own heart, when there be so many that
cast Christ over their shoulder. Good brother, call to mind the
memory of your worthy father, now asleep in Christ ; and, as his
custom was, pray continually, and wrestle for the life of a dying
breathless kirk : and desire John Stuart not to forget poor Zion, —
she hath few friends, and few to speak one good word for her.
Now I commend you, your whole soul, and body and spirit, to
Jesus Christ and his keeping, hoping that ye will live and die,
stand and fall, with the cause of our Master, Jesus. The Lord
Jesus himself be with your spirit.
Your loving brother in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, Feb. 2, 1G37.
LETTER XCL
TO MY WELL-BELOVED, AND REVEREND BROTHER, MR.
ROBERT BLAIR.
Reverend, and dearly-beloved Brother, — Grace, mercy,
and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
be unto you.
It is no great wonder, my dear brother, that ye be in heaviness
for a season, and that God's will, in crossing your design and de-
sires to dwell amongst a people whose God is the Lord, should
move you. I deny not that ye have cause to inquire what his
providence speaketh in this to you ; but God's directing and com-
manding will can, by no good logic, be concluded from events of
providence. The Lord sent Paul on many errands for the spread-
ing of his Gospel, where he found lions in his way. A promise
was made to his people of the Holy Land, and yet many nations
were in the way, fighting against, and ready to kill them who had
the promise, or to keep them from possessing that good land which
the Lord their God had given them. I know that ye have most
to do with submission of spirit ; but I persuade myself that ye
have learned, in every condition wherein ye are cast, thereui to be
content, and to say " Good is the will of the Lord, let it be done." ^
160 Rutherford's letters.
I believe that the Lord tackleth ' his ship often to fetch the wind,
and that he purposeth to bring mercy out of your sufferings and
silence, which, (I know from mine own experience,) is grievous to
you. Seeing that he knoweth our willing mind to serve him, our
wages and stipend is running to the fore ^ with our God, even as
some sick soldiers get pay when they are bedfast, and not able to
go to the field with others. " Though Israel be not gathered, yet
shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be
my strength," (Isa. xlix. 5.) And we are to believe it shall be
thus ere all the play be played. (Jer. li. 35,) " The violence done
to me and my flesh be upon Babylon," and the Great Whore's
lovers, " shall the inhabitants of Zion say ; and my blood be upon
Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say." And, (Zech. xii. 2,) "Behold I
will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the people round
about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and
against Jerusalem;" (ver. 3,) "And in that day will I make Jeru-
salem a burdensome stone for all people ; they that burden them-
selves with it shall \)e broken in pieces, though all the people of
the earth be gathered against it." When they have eaten and
swallowed us up, they shall be sick, and vomit us out living men
again : — the Devil's stomach cannot digest the Church of God.
Suffering is the other half of our ministry, howbeit the hardest:
for we would be content that our King, Jesus, should make an
open proclamation, and cry down crosses, and cry up joy, gladness,
ease, honor, and peace ; but it must not be so ; through many
afflictions we must enter into the Kingdom of God. Not only by
them, but through them must we go ; and wiles will not take us
— past the cross : — it is folly to think to steal to Heaven with a whole
skin.
For myself, I am here a prisoner confined in Aberdeen, threat-
ened to be removed to Caithness, because I desire to edify in this
town : and am openly preached against in the pulpits in my hear-
ing, and tempted with disputations by the doctors, especially by
D. B. Yet I am not ashamed of the garland and crown of my
Lord Jesus. I would not exchange my weeping with the painted
laughter of the Fourteen Prelates. At my first coming here I
took the dorts ^ at Christ, and would, forsooth, summon him for
unkindness. I sought a plea^ of my Lord, and was tossed with
challenges^ whether he loved me or not; and disputed over again
all that he had done to me, because his word was a fire shut up in
my bowels and I was weary with forbearing, because I said I was
cast out of the Lord's inheritance ; but now I see that I was a
fool. My Lord miskent"^ all, and did bear with my foolish jeal-
ousies, and miskent* that ever I wronged his love ; and now he is
come again with mercy under his wings. I passed from my (oh,
thoughtless !) summons : he is God, I see, and I am man. Now
it hath pleased him to renew his love to my soul, and to dawf his
poor prisoner. Therefore, dear brother, help me to praise ; and
1 Tacketh. 2 To account. 3 Pet. 4 Quarrel.
* 5 Q,uestionincrs. 6 Would not know. ' Fondle.
Rutherford's letters. 161
show the Lord's people with yoii what he hath done to my soul,
that they may pray and praise ; and I charge you, in the name
of Christ, not to omit it : for this cause I write to you, that my
sufferings may glorify my royal King, and edify his church in Ire-
land. He knoweth how one of Christ's love-coals hath burnt my
soul with a desire to have my bonds to preach his glory, whose
cross I now bear. God forgive you if you do it not ; but I hope
the Lord will move your heart, to proclaim in my behalf the sweet-
ness, excellency, and glory of my royal King. It is but our soft
flesh that hath raised a slander on the i^ross of Christ: I see now
the white side of it ; my Lord's chains are all over-gilded. Oh,
if Scotland and Ireland had part of my feast ! And yet I get not
my meat but with many strokes. There are none here to whom
I can speak : I dwell in Kedar's tents. Refresh me with a letter
from you. Few know wbat is betwixt Christ and me.
Dear brother, upon my salvation, this is his truth that we suffer
for. Christ would not seal a blank charter to souls. Courage,
courage, joy, joy for evermore ! Oh joy unspeakable and glorious !
Oh for help to set my crowned King on high ! Oh for love to Him
who is altogether lovely ! that love which many waters cannot
quench, neither can the floods drown !
I remember you, and bear your name on my breast to Christ.
I beseech you forget not his afflicted prisoner. Grace, mercy, and
peace be with you. Salute, in the Lord, from me, Mr. Cunning-
ham, Mr. Livingston, Mr. Ridge, Mr. Colwart, &c.
Your brother, and fellow-prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 7, 1G37.
LETTER XCIL
TO HIS REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. JOHN LIVINGSTOW.
My Reverend and Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you — I long to hear from you, and to be refreshed with
the comforts of the bride of our Lord Jesus in Ireland. I suffer
with you in grief for the dash that your desires to be at N. E. have
received of late ; but if our Lord, who hath skill to bring up His
children, had not seen it your best, it would not have befallen you.
Hold your peace, and stay yourself upon the Holy One of Israel.
Hearken to what He hath said in crossing of your desires, He will
speak peace to His people.
I am here removed from my flock, and silenced, and confined in
Aberdeen, for the testimony of Jesus ; and I have been confined
in spirit also with desertions and challenges. ^ I gave in a bill of
quarrels, and complaints of unkindness against Christ, who seemed
to have cast me over the dyke ^ of the vineyard, as a dry tree, and
separated me from the Lord's inheritance : but high, high and
» Oh, that. 2 Accusations. 3 Wall.
11
162 Rutherford's letters.
loud praises be to our royal crowned King in Zion, that He hath
not burnt the dry branch — I shall yet live, and see His glory.
Your Mother-church, for her whoredom, is like to be cast off.
The bairns may break their hearts, to see such chiding betwixt
the husband and the wife. Our clergy is upon a reconciliation
with the Lutherans, and the doctors are writing books, and draw-
ing up a Common Confession at the Council's command. Our
Service-book ^ is proclaimed with sound of trumpet. The night is
fallen down upon the prophets ; Scotland's day of visitation is
come : it is time for the bride to weep, while Christ is a-saying
that He will choose another wife. But our sky will clear again.
The dry branch of cut-down Lebanon will bud again and be glo-
rious, and they shall yet plant vines upon our mountains.
Now, my dear brother, I write to you for this end, that ye may
help me to praise, and seek help of others with you, that God
be glorified in my bonds. My Lord Jesus hath taken the with-
ered dry stranger, and His prisoner broken in heart, into His house-
of-wine. Oh ! if^ ye, and all Scotland, and all our brethren with
you, knew how I am feasted ! Christ's honeycombs drop com-
forts. He dineth with His prisoner, and the King's spikenard
casteth a smell. The Devil cannot get it denied that we suffer
for the apple of Christ's eye. His royal prerogatives as King and
Law-giver. Let us not fear or faint. He will have His Gospel
once again rouped^ in Scotland, and have the matter going to
voices, to see who will say, " Let Christ be crowned King in Scot-
land." It is true that Antichrist stirreth his tail ; but I love a
rumbling or raging devil in the Kirk, (since the Church militant
cannot or may not want a devil to trouble her,) rather than a
subtile or sleeping devil. Christ never yet got a bride without
stroke of sword. It is now nigh the Bridegroom's entering into
His chamber, let us awake and go in with Him.
I bear your name to Christ's door ; I pray you, dear brother,
forget me not. Let me hear from you by letter, and I charge you,
smother not Christ's bounty towards me. I write what I have
found of Him in the house of my pilgrimage. Remember my love
to all our brethren and sisters there.
The Keeper of the vineyard watch for His besieged city, and
for you.
Your brother, and fellow-sufferer, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 7, 1637.
LETTER XCHI.
TO MR. EPHRAIM MELVIN.
Reverend, and Dear Brother, — I received your letter, and
am contented, with all my heart, that our acquaintance in our
Lord continue.
> Book of Common Prayer. 2 Oh that. 3 Put up to sale by auction.
Rutherford's letters. 163
I am wrestling, as I dow/ up the mount with Christ's cross :
my Second is kind, and able to help.
As for your questions, because of my manifold distractions, and
letters to multitudes, I have not time to answer them. What shall
be said, in common for that, shall be imparted to you : for I am
upon these questions : therefore, spare me a little, for the Service-
book ^ would take a great time. But I think, Sicut deosculatio
religiosa imaginis, aut etiam elementorum, est in se idololatria ex-
terna, etsi intentio deosculandi, tota, quanta in actu est, feratur in
Deum nqbnoTvnbv | ita, geniculatio coram pane, quando, nempe, ex
instituto, totus homo externus et internus versari debeat circa ele-
mentaria signa, est adoratio relativa, et adoratio ipsius panis.
Ratio : Intentio adorandi objectum materiale, non est de essentia
externae adorationis, ut patet in desoculatione religiosa. Sic geni-
culatio coram imagine Babylonica est externa adoratio imaginis,
etsi tres pueri mente intendissent adorare Jehovam. Sic, qui ex
metu solo, aut spe pretii, aut inanis glorise, geniculatur coram
aureo vitulo Jeroboami, (quod ab ipso rege, qui nulla reiigione in-
ductus, sed libidine dominandi tantum, vitulum erexit, factitatum
esse, textus satis luculenter clamat,) adorat vitulum externa ado-
ratione ; esto quod putaret vitulum esse meram creaturam, et ho-
nore nullo dignum : quia geniculatio, sive nos nolumus, sive
volumus, ex instituto Dei et naturae, in actu religioso, est symbo-
lum religiosse adorationis : ergo, sicut panis significat corpus
Christi, etsi absit actus omnis nostras intentionis ; sic religiosa
geniculatio, sublata omni intentione human a, est externa adoratio
panis, coram quo adoramus, ut coram signo vicario et repreesenta-
tivo Dei.
Thus recommending you to God's tender mercy, I desire that
ye would remember me to God. Sanctification will settle you
most in the truth.
Grace be with you.
Your brother in Christ Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637,
LETTER XCIV.
TO ROBERT GORDON, OF KNOCKBREX.
My VERY Worthy, and Dear Friend, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you — Though all Galloway should have forgotten me,
I would have expected a letter from you ere now : — but I will not
expound it to be forgetfulness of me.
Now, my dear brother, I cannot show you how matters go be-
twixt Christ and me. I find my Lord going and coming seven
times a-day. His visits are short ; but they are both frequent and
sweet. I dare not for my life think of a challenge of my Lord.
1 Am able. ^ Book of Common Prayer.
164 Rutherford's letters.
I hear ill tales, and hard reports of Christ, from the Tempter, and
my flesh : but love believeth no evil. I may swear that they are
liars, and that apprehensions make lies of Christ's honest and un-
alterable love to me. I dare not say that I am a dry tree, or that
I have no room at all in the vineyard : but yet I often think that
the sparrows are blessed, who may resort to the House of God in
Anwoth, from which I am banished.
Temptations, that I supposed to be stricken dead, and laid upon
their back, rise again, and revive upon me ; yea, I see that, while
I live, temptations will not die. The Devil seemeth to brag and
boast as much, as if he had more court with Christ than I have ;
and as if he had charmed and blasted my ministry, that I shall
do no more good in public : but this wind shaketh no corn.' I
will not believe that Christ would have made such a minf^ to
have me to himself, and have taken so much pains upon me as
He hath done, and then slip away so easily from possession,
and lose the glory of what He hath done. Nay, since I came to
Aberdeen, I have been taken up to see the New Land, the fair
palace of the Lamb : and, will Christ let me see Heaven, to break
my heart, and never give it to me ? I shall not think my Lord
Jesus giveth a dumb earnest, or putteth His seals to blank paper,
or intendeth to put me off with fair and false promises.
I see that now, which I never saw well before. — 1. I see faith's
necessity in a fair day is never known aright ; but now I miss
nothing so much as faith. Hunger in me runneth to fair and
sweet promises ; but, when I come, I am like a hungry man that
wanteth teeth, or a weak stomach having a sharp appetite that
is filled with the very sight of meat, or like one stupified with cold
under the water, that would fain come to land, but cannot grip^
anything casten^ to him. I can let Christ grip me, but I cannot
grip him. I love to be kissed and sit on Christ's knee ; but I
cannot set my feet to the ground, for afflictions bring the cramp
upon my faith. All that I dow^ do is to hold out a lame faith to
Christ, like a beggar holding out a stump, instead of an arm, or
leg, and crying, " Lord Jesus work a miracle !" Oh, what would
I give to have hands and arms, to grip ^ strongly, and fold heart-
somely," about Christ's neck, and to have my claim made good
with real possession ! I think that my love to Christ hath feet ir\
abundance, and runneth swiftly to be at him, but it wanteth
hands and fingers to apprehend him. I think that I would give
Christ every morning my blessing, to have as much faith as I
have love and hunger ; at least, I miss faith more than love or
hunger.
2. I see that mortification, and to be crucified to the world, is
not so highly accounted of by us as it should be. Oh, how heaven-
ly a thing it is to be dead, and dumb, and deaf to this world's
sweet music ! I confess it hath pleased his Majesty to make me
• A proverbial expression, intimating that liis efforts avail nothing.
2 Intimation, by word or signs, of an intention. 3 Lay hold of.
* Thrown. 5 Am able to. 6 Cordially,
Rutherford's letters. 165
laugh at children, who are wooing this world for their match. I
see men lying about the world, as nobles about a king's court ;
and I wonder what they are all doing there. As I am at this
present I would scorn to court such a feckless ' and petty princess,
or buy this world's kindness with a bow of my knee. I scarce
now either hear or see what it is that this world offereth me ; I
know that it is little which it can take from me, and as little that
it can give me. I recommend mortification to 5'^ou above any-
thing ; for, alas ! we but chase feathers flying in the air, and tire
our own spirits for the froth and over-gilded clay of a dying life.
One sight of what my liOrd hath let me see within this short
time, is worth a world of worlds.
3. I thought courage in the time of trouble for Christ's sake, a
thing that I might take up at my foot ; I thought that the very
remembrance of the honesty of the cause would be enough ; but I
was a fool in so thinking. I have much ado now to win to" one
smile. But I see that joy groweth up in Heaven, and it is above
our short arm. Christ will be steward and dispenser himself, and
none else but he ; therefore, now, I count much of one drachm-
weight of spiritual joy. One smile of Christ's face is now to me
as a kingdom, and yet he is no niggard to rae of comforts. Truly
I have no cause to say that I am pinched with penury, or that
the consolations of Christ are dried up : for he hath poured down
rivers upon a- dry wilderness, the like of me, to my admiration:
and in my very swoonings, he holdeth up my head, and stayeth
me with flagons of wine, and comforteth me with apples. My
house and bed are strewed with kisses of love. Praise, praise
with me. Oh, if ye and I betwixt us could lift up Christ upon his
throne, howbeit all Scotland should cast him down to the ground !
My brother's case toucheth me near. I hope that ye will be
kind to him, and give him your best counsel.
Remember my love to your brother, to your wife, and G. M.
Desire him to be faithful, and to repent of his hypocrisy ; and say
that I wrote it to you. 1 wish him salvation. Write to me your
mind anent C. E., and C. Y., and their wives, and I. G., or any
others in my parish. I fear that I am forgotten amongst them ;
but I cannot forget them.
The prisoner's prayers and blessings come upon you. Grace,
grace be with you.
Your brother, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 9, 1637.
1 Worthless. 2 To attaio to.
166 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XCV.
TO THE HONORABLE, AND TRULY NOBLE LADY, THE VISCOUNT-
ESS OP KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship— I
long to hear from you. I am here waiting, if a good wind, long-
looked-for, will at length blow into Christ's sails, in this land.
But I wonder if Jesus be not content to suffer more yet in his
members and cause, and in the beauty of his house, rather than
he should not be avenged upon this land. I hear that many
worthy men, (who see more in the Lord's dealings, than I can
take up with my dim sight,) are of a contrary mind, and do be-
lieve that the Lord is coming home again, to his House in Scot-
land. I hope he is on his journey that way ; yet I look not but
that he will feed this land with their own "blood, before he estab-
lish his throne amongst us. I know that your Honor is not look-
ing after things hereaway.^ Ye have no great cause to think
that your stock and principal is under the roof of these visible
heavens ; and I hope that ye would think yourself a beguiled and
cozened soul if it were so. I sliould be sorry to counsel your
Ladyship, to make a covenant with time, and this life ; but rather
desire you to hold in fair generals, and afar off from this ill- #
founded heaven, that is on this side of the water. It speaketh
somewhat, when our Lord bloweth the bloom ^ off our daft^ hopes
in this hfe, and loppeth the branches off our worldly joys, well
nigh the root, on purpose that they should not thrive. Lord
spill ^ my fool's heaven in this life, that I may be saved forever.
A forfeiture of the saint's part of the yolk and marrow of short-
laughing worldly happiness, is not such a real evil as our blinded
eyes conceive.
I am thinking long* now for some deliverance more than be-
fore. But I know that I am in an error. It is possible I am not
come to that measure of trial which the Lord is seeking in his
work. If my friends in Galloway would effectually do« for my
deliverance, I should exceedingly rejoice ; but I know not but the
Lord hath a way, whereof he will be the only reaper of praises.
Let me know with the bearer how the child is. The Lord be
his tutor, and your only comforter. There is nothing here where
I am, but profanity, and atheism. Grace, grace be with your
Ladyship.
Your Ladyship's, at all obliged obedience, in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 13, 1G37.
1 In this present state. 2 Blossom. 3 Insane, foolish.
* Spoil, ruin. ^ Longing. « Exert themselves.
Rutherford's letters. 167
LETTER XCVI.
TO THE NOBLE, AND CHRISTIAN LADY, THp VISCOUNTESS OP
KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you — I would not
omit the occasion to write to your Ladyship with the bearer. I
am glad that the child is well. God's favor, even in the eyes of
men, be seen upon him !
I hope that your Ladyship is thinking upon these sad and
woful days wherein we now live; when our Lord, in his right-
eous judgment, is sending the Kirk the gate' she is going, to
Rome's b'rothel-house, to seek a lover of her own, seeing that she
hath given up with Christ her husband. Oh, what sweet com-
fort, what rich salvation, are laid up for those who had rather
wash and roll their garments in their own blood, than break out
from Christ by apostasy! Keep yourself in the love of Christ,
and stand far aback from the pollutions of the world. Side not
with these times, and hold off from coming nigh the signs of a
conspiracy with tliose that are now come out against Christ, that
ye may be one kept for Christ only. I know that your Ladyship
thinketh upon this, and how you' may be humbled for yourself,
and this backsliding land ; for I avouch, that wrath from the
Lord is gone out against Scotland. I think aye the longer the
better of my royal and wortliy Master. He is become a new
Well-beloved to me now, in renewed consolations, by the presence
of the Spirit of grace and glory. Christ's garments smell of the
powder of the merchant, when he cometh out of his ivory cham-
bers. Oh, his perfumed face, his fair face, his lovely and kindly
kisses, have made me, a poor prisoner, see, that there is more to
be had of Christ in this life than I had believed ! We think all
is but a little earnest, a four-hours',^ a small tasting, which we
have, or that is to be had in this life, (which is true compared
with the inheritance ;) but yet I know it is more, it is the King-
dom of God within us. Wo, wo is me, that I have not ten loves
for that one Lord Jesus ; and that love faileth, and drieth up in
loving him : and that I find no way to spend my love desires, and
the yolk of my heart upon that fairest and dearest One. I am
far behind with my narrow heart. Oh, how ebb^ a soul have I
to take in Christ's love ! for, let w^orlds be multiphed, according to
angels' understanding, in millions. whill< they weary themselves,
these worlds would not contain the thousandth part of his love.
Oh, if* I could yoke in« amongst the thick' of angels, and sera-
phims, and now glorified saints, and could raise a new love-song
of Christ, before all the world !— I am pained with wondering at
new-opened treasures in Christ. If every finger, member, bone,
> Road. 2 a slight afternoon refreshment. 3 Shallow. * Till.
5 Oh, that. 5 To yoke in, to join in with energy. ' Throng.
168 Rutherford's letters.
and joint, were a torch burning in the hottest fire in Hell, I would
that they could all send out love praises, high songs of praise, for
evermore, to that Plant of Renown, to that royal and high Prince,
Jesus my Lord. But alas ! his love swelleth in me and findeth
no vent, Alas ! what can a dumb prisoner do, or say for him !
Oh, for an ingine' to write a book of Christ and his love ! Nay,
I am left of him bound, and chained with his love. I cannot find
a loosed soul to lift up his praises and give them out to others.
But, oh ! my day-light hath thick clouds ; I cannot shine in his
praises. I am often like a ship plying about to seek the wind : I
sail at great leisure, and cannot be blown upon that loveliest Lord.
Oh, if^ I could turn my sails to Christ's right airth :^ and that I
had my heart's wishes of his love ! But, I but mar his praises :
nay, I know no comparison of what Christ is, and what his worth
is ; all the angels, and all the glorified, praise him not so much
as in halves — who can advance him, or utter all his praises? I
want nothing : unknown faces favor me : enemies must speak
good of the truth : my Master's cause purchaseth commendations.
The hopes of my enlargement, from appearances, are cold. My
faith hath no bed to sleep upon but omnipoteucy. The good-will
of the Lord, and his sweetest presence, be with you and that child.
Grace, and peace, be yours.
Your Ladyship's, in all duty in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER XCVIL
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE AND CHRISTIAN LADY, THE VIS-
COUNTESS OF KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, merc}'^, and peace, be to your Ladyship — I
would not omit to write a line with this Christian bearer, one in
your Ladyship's own case, driven near to Christ, in, and by her
affliction. I wish that my friends in Galloway forget me not.
However it be, Christ is so good that I will have no other tutor,
suppose I could have wale * and choice of ten thousand beside. I
think now, five hundred heavy hearts for him too little. I wish
that Christ, now weeping, suffering, and contemned of men, were
more dear and desirable to many souls than he is. I am sure
that if the saints wanted ^ Christ's cross, so profitable, and so
sweet, they might, for the gain and glory of it, wish it were law-
ful, either to buy or borrow his cross. But it is a mercy that the
saints have it laid to their hand for nothing ; for I know no sweeter
way to Heaven, than through free grace, and hard trials together ;
and one of these cannot well want« another. Oh, that time would
post faster, and hasten our looked-for communion with that Fair-
1 Genius. 2 oh, that. 3 Point of the compass, direction.
* Choice, Wale and choice, liberty of choice, with full and ample store to choose from.
5 Were without. 6 Do without.
Rutherford's letters. 169
est, Fairest among- the sons of men ! Oh, that the day would
favor us and come, and put Christ and us into each other's arms !
I am sure that a few years will do our turn, and the soldier's hour-
glass will soon run out.
Madam, look to your lamp, and look for your Lord's coming,
and let your heart dwell aloof from that sweet child. Christ's
jealousy will not admit of two equal loves in your Ladyship's
heart. He must have one, and that the greatest ; a little one to
a creature, may, and must suffice a soul married to him. " Thy
maker is thy Husband," (Isa. hv. 5.) I would wish you well, and
my obligations these many years by-gone ^ speak no less to me ;
but more I can neither wish nor pray, nor desire for your Lady-
ship, than Christ singled and waled ^ out from all created good
things, or Christ, howbeit, wet in his own blood, and wearing a
crown of thorns. I am sure that the saints, at their best, are but
strangers to the weight and worth of the incomparable sweetness
of Christ. He is so new, so fresh in excellency, every day so new,
to those that search more and more in him, as if Heaven could
furnish us as many new Christs, (if I may so speak,) as there are
days betwixt him and us, and yet he is one and the same. Oh,
we love an unknown lover, when we love Christ !
Let me hear how the child is every way. The prayers of a
prisoner of Christ be upon him. — Grace for evermore, even whill
glory perfect it, be with your Ladyship.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER XCVHL
TO THE NOBLE, AND CHRISTIAN LADY, THE VISCOUNTESS OF
KENMURE.
Madam, — Notwithstanding the great haste of the bearer, I
would bless your Ladyship on paper, desiring, that since Christ
hath ever envied that the world should have your love by ^ him,
that ye give yourself out for Christ, and that ye may be for no
other. I know none worthy of you but Christ.
Madam, I am either suffering for Christ, and this is either the
sure and good way, or I have done with Heaven, and shall never
see God's face, (which I bless him cannot be.)
I write ray blessing to that sweet child, that ye have borrowed
from God. He is no heritage to you, but a loan : love him as
folks do borrowed things. My heart is heavy for you.
They say that the Kirk of Christ hath neither son nor heir,
and, therefore, that her enemies shall possess her. But I know
that she is not that^ ill-friended ;6 her Husband is her heir, and
she his heritage.
1 By past. 2 Chosen, culled. > 3 Past.
* So. 5 Destitute of relatives.
170 Rutherford's letters.
If my Lord would be pleased, I should desire that some were dealt
with, for my return to Anwoth : but if that never be, I thank God
Anwoth is not Heaven ; preaching is not Christ — I hope to wait on.
Let me hear how the child is, and your Ladyship's mind and
hopes of him ;■ for it would ease my heart to know that he is well.
I am in good terms with Christ ; but oh, my guiltiness ! yet he
bringeth not pleas betwixt him and me to the streets, and before ,
the sun.
Grace, grace for evermore, be with your Ladyship.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER XCIX.
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OP EARLSTON.
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I
received your letter, which refreshed me. Except from your son,
and my brother, I have seen few letters from my acquaintance in
that country, which maketh me heavy. But I have the company
of a Lord, who can teach us all to be kind, and hath the right
gate ' of it ; for though, for the present, I have severe ups and
downs every day, yet I am abundantly comforted and feasted with
my King and Well-beloved daily. It pleaseth him to come and
dine Avith a sad prisoner, and a solitary stranger ; his spikenard
casteth a smell ; yet my sweet hath some sour mixed with it,
wherein I must acquiesce ; for there is no reason that his comforts
be too cheap, seeing they are delicates ; — why should he not make
them so to his own ') But I verily think now that Christ hath led
me up to a nick'^ in Christianity that I was never at before ; I think
all before was but childhood and bairns' play. Since I departed
from you, I have been scalded, whill the smoke of Hell's lire went
in at my throat, and I would have bought peace with a thousand
years' torment in Hell ; and I have been up also, after these deep
down-castings and sorrows, before the Lamb's white throne, in my
Father's inner court, the Great King's dining-hall ; and Christ did
cast a covering of love on me ; he hath casten a coal into my soul,
and it is smoking among the straw, and keeping the heartli warm.
I look back to what I was before, and I laugh to sec the sand-
houses^ I built when I was a child.
At first, the remembrance of the many fair feast-days with my
Lord Jesus in public, which are now changed into silent sabbaths,
Taised a great tempest, and, (if I may speak so,) made the Devil
ado in my soul. The Devil came in, and would prompt me to
make a plea with Christ, and to lay the blame on him as a hard
master : but now these mists are blown away, and I am not only
1 Way. 2 Notch, degree.
3 Houses built by children of the sand on the sea-shore, which are swept away by
the returning tide : metaphorically, illusory, fleeting expectations.
Rutherford's letters. 171
silenced as to all quarreling, but fully satisfied. Now, I wonder
that any man living can laugh upon the world, or give it a hearty
good-day. The Lord Jesus hath handled me so, that, as I am now
disjDosed, I think never to be in this world's commons' again for a
night's lodging. Christ bearetli me good company ; he hath eased
me, when 1 saw it not, lifting the cross off my shoulders, so that I
think it to be but a feather, because vmderneath are everlasting
arms. God forbid it come to bartering or niffering^ of crosses;
for I think my cross so sweet, that I know not where I would get
the like of it. Christ's honey-combs drop so abundantly, that they
sweeten my gall. Nothing breaketh my lieart, but that I cannot
get the daughters of Jerusalem, to tell them of my Bridegroom's
glory. I charge you in the name of Christ, that ye tell all tliatye
come to of it ; — and yet it is above telling and understanding.
Oh, if 2 all the kingdom were as I am, except my bonds ! They
know not the love-kisses that my only Lord Jesus wasteth on a
dawted^ prisoner. On my salvation, this is the only way to the
New City. I know that Christ hath no dumb seals. Would he
put his privy-seal upon blank paper? He hath sealed my suffer-
ings with his comforts. I write this to confirm you. I write now
what I have seen as well as heard. Now and then my silence
burnetii up my spirit ; but Christ hath said, " Thy stipend is run-
ning up with interest in Heaven, as if thou wert preaching ;" and
this from a King's mouth rejoiceth my heart. At other times, I
am sad, dwelling in Kedar's tents.
There are none, (that I yet know of,) but two persons in this
town that I dare give my word for; and the Lord hath removed
my brethren and my acquaintance far from me ; and it may be,
that I shall be forgotten in the place where the Lord made me the
instrument to do some good. But I see that this is vanity in me ;
let him make of me what he pleaseth, if he make salvation out
of it to me. I am tempted and troubled, that all the Fourteen
Prelates should have been armed of God against me only, while
the rest of my brethren are still preaching ; but I dare not say one
word but this — " It is good, Lord Jesus, because thou hast done it."
Wo is me for the Virgin-daughter ! wo is me for the desolation
of the Virgin-daughter of Scotland ! Oh, if^ my eyes were a
fountain of tears, to weep day and night for that poor Widow-kirk,
that poor miserable Harlot ! Alas, that my Father hath put-to the
door my poor Harlot-mother ! Oh for that cloud of black wrath, and
fury of the indignation of the Lord, that is hanging over the land.
Sir. write to me, I beseech you : I pray you also, be kind to my
afflicted brother. Remember my love to your wife ; and the prayer
and blessing of the prisoner of Christ be on you. Frequent your
meetings for prayer and communion with God : — they would be
sweet meetings to me.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. IG, 1637.
1 That is, under obligation to this world. 2 Exchanging.
3 Oh, that. * Fondled.
172 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER C.
TO THE WORTHY, AND MUCH-HONORED MR. ALEXANDER
COLVILLE, OF BLAIR,
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you —
The bearer hereof, Mr. R. F., is most kind to me : I desire you to
thank him. But none is so kind as my only royal King and
Master, whose cross is my garland. The King dineth with his
prisoner, and his spikenard casteth a smell. He hath led me up
to such a pitch and nick' of joyful communion with himself, as I
never knew before. When I look back to by-gones,^ I judge my-
self to have been a child at A, B, C, with Christ. Worthy sir,
pardon me, I dare not conceal it from you, it is as a fire in my
bowels, in His presence who seeth me I speak it ! I am pained,
pained with the love of Christ ; he hath made me sick, and wounded
me ; hunger for Christ outrunneth faith ; I miss faith more than
love. Oh, if3 the Three Kingdoms would come and see ! Oh, if^
they knew his kindness to my soul ! It hath pleased him to bring
me to this, that I will not strike sails to this world, nor flatter it,
nor adore this clay-idol that fools worship. As I am now disposed,
I think that I shall neither borrow nor lend with it ;" and yet I
get my meat from Christ with nurture j^ for seven times a day I
am lifted up, and casten down. My dumb sabbaths burden my
heart, and make it bleed. I am not without fearful challenges^
and jealousies'' sometimes of Christ's love, that he hath casten
me over the dyke^ of the vineyard as a dry tree. But this is my
infirmity ; by his grace I take myself* in these ravings : it is kindly
that faith and love both be sick, and fevers are kindly to most
joyful communion with Christ.
Ye are blessed who avouch Christ openly before the Prince of
this Kingdom, whose eyes are upon you. It is your glory to lift
him up on his throne, to carry his train, and bear up the hem of
his royal robe. He hath an hiding-place for Mr. Alex. Colville
against the storm : go on, and fear not what man can do. The
saints seem to have the worst of it, (for apprehensions can make
a lie of Christ and his love,) but it is not so. Providence is not
rolled upon unequal and crooked wheels ; all things work together
for the good of those who love God, and are called according to
his purpose. Ere it be long, we shall see the white side of God's
providence.
My brother's case hath moved me not a little. He wrote to me
your care and kindness. Sir, the prisoner's blessing and prayers,
I trust, shall not go past you. He that is able to keep you, and to
1 Degree. 2 Matters by-passed. ^ Oh, that.
* Shall have no dealings whatever with. ^ Correction.
6 Questionings. "> Suspicions. * Wall.
' To take oneself, to retract one's word.
Rutherford's letters. 173
present you before the presence of his face with joy, establish your
heart in the love of Christ.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 19 Feb., 1637.
LETTER CI.
TO earlston, younger..
Honored, and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you — I received your letter, which refreshed my soul.
I thank God, that the court is closed, I think shame of my part
of it ; I pass now from my unjust summons of unkindness, libelled
against Christ my Lord. He is not such a Lord and Master as I
took him to be ; verily he is God, and I am dust and ashes. I took
Christ's glooms ' to be as good as Scripture speaking wrath ; but
I have seen tiie other side of Christ, and the white side of his cross
now. I behooved to come to Aberdeen, to learn a new mystery in
Christ, that his promise is better to be believed than his looks, and
that the Devil can cause Christ's glooms ' to speak a lie to a weak
man. Nay, verily, I was a child before : all by-gones ^ are but
bairns' play. I would I could begin to be a Christian in sad ear-
nest.^ I need not blame Christ if I be not one ; for he hath showed
me heaven and hell in Aberdeen ; but the truth is, for all my sor-
row, Christ is nothing in my debt, for comforts have refreshed my
soul. I have heard and seen him in hi-s sweetness, so, as I am
almost saying, it is not he that I was wont to meet with. He
smileth more cheerfully, his kisses are more sweet and soul-refresh-
ing, than the kisses of the Christ I saw before were, (though he
be the same ;) or rather the King hath led me up to a measure of
joy and communion with my Bridegroom that I never attained to
before ; so that often I think, that I will neither borrow nor lend<
with this world : I will not strike sail to crosses, nor flatter them
to be quit of them, as I have done. Come all crosses, welcome,
welcome ! so that I may get my heartful of my Lord Jesus. I
have been so near him that I have said, " I take instruments^ that
this is the Lord. Leave a token behind thee, that I may never
forget this." Now, what can Christ do more to dawt^ one of his
poor prisoners? Therefore, sir, I charge you, in the name of my
Lord Jesus, praise with me, and show unto others what he hath
done unto my soul. This is the fruit of my sufferings, that I de-
sire Christ's name may be spread abroad in this kingdom, in my
behalf I hope in God not to slander him again ; yet in this, I
get not my feasts without some mixture of gall ; neither am I free
I Frowns. 2 By-passed matters. 3 Sober earnest.
* That is, have any dealings whatever.
5 That is, I declare, and I claim that the declaration be recorded, in order that it
may become evidence. ^ Fondle.
174 Rutherford's letters.
of old jealousies ; for he hath removed my lovers and friends far
from me: he hath made my congregation desolate, and taken
away my crown : and my dumb sabbaths are like a stone tyed to
a bird's foot, that wanteth not wings ; they seem to hinder me to
flee 1 were it not that I dare not say one word, but, " Well done,
Lord Jesus."
We can, in our prosperity, sport ourselves, and be too bold with
Christ; yea, be that^ insolent, as to chide with him; but under
the water we dare not speak. I wonder now of my sometimes '
boldness, to chide and quarrel Christ, to nickname providence,
when it stroked me against the hair ; but now, swhnming in the
waters, I think my will is fallen to the ground^ of the water; I
have lost it. I thinic that I would fain let Ciirist alone, and give
him leave to do with me what he pleaseth, if he would smile upon
me. Verily, w^e know not what an evil it is to spilP and indulge
ourselves, and to make an idol of our will. I was once that I
would not eat, except I had waled ^ meat; now I dare not com-
plain of the crumbs and parings under his table. I was once that
I would make the house ado, if I saw not the world carved, and
set in order to my liking ; now I am silent, when I see God hath
set servants on horseback, and is fattening and feeding the chil-
dren of perdition. I pray God, that I may never find my will
again. Oh, if Christ w^ould subject my will to his, and trample
it under his feet, and liberate me from that lawless lord !
Now. sir, in your youth gather fast ; your sun will mount to the
meridian quickly, and thereafter decline. Be greedy of grace.
Study above anything, my dear brother, to mortify your lusts.
Oh, but pride of youth, vanity, lust, idolizing of the world, and
charming pleasures, take long time to root them out ! As far as
ye are advanced in the way to Heaven, as near as ye are to Christ,
as much progress as ye have made in the way of mortification, ye
will find that ye are far behind, and have most of your work before
you. I never took it to be so hard to be dead to my lusts and to
this world. When tlie day of visitation cometh, and your old idols
come weeping about you, ye will have much ado not to break your
heart : it is best to give up in time with them, so as ye could at a
call quit your part of this world for a drink of water, or a thing of
nothing. Verily I have seen the best of this world, a moth-eaten,
thread-bare coat ; I purpose to lay it aside, being now old and full
of holes. Oh, for my house above, not made with hands !
Pray for Christ's prisoner; and write to me. Remember my
love to your mother. Desire her, from me, to make ready for re-
moving ; the Lord's tide will not bide her ; and to seek an heav-
enly mind, that her heart may be often there. Grace be with you.
Yours, and Christ's Prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 20, 1637.
» To fly. 2 So. 3 Former. < Bottom.
5 To spoil. 6 Carefully selected. ^ Oh, that.
Rutherford's letters. 175
LETTER GIL
to the lady cardoness.
My Dearly-beloved, and Longed-for in the Lord, —
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I long to hear how your
soul prospereth, and how the Kingdom of Christ thriveth in you.
I exhort you and beseech you in the bowels of Christ, faint not,
weary not. There is a great necessity of Heaven ; ye must needs
have it: all other things, as houses, lands, children, husband,
friends, country, credit, health, wealth, honor, may be wanted ;
but Heaven is your one thing necessary, the good part that shall
not be taken from you. See that ye buy the field where the Pearl
is. Sell all, and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not
easy, for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory : many are lying dead
by the way, that are slain with security.
I have now been led by my Lord Jesus to such a nick ' in Chris-
tianity, as I think little of former things. Oh, what I want ! I
want so many things, that I am almost asking if I have anything
at all. Every man thinketh he is rich enough in grace, till he
take out his purse, and tell his money, and then he findeth his
pack but poor and hglit in the day of a heavy trial. I found that
I had not to bear my expenses, and I should have fainted, if want
and penury had not chased me to the Store-house of all. I be-
seech you make conscience of your ways. Deal kindly, and with
conscience with your tenants. To fill a breach, or a hole, make
not a greater breach in the conscience. I wish plenty of love to
your soul. Let the world be the portion of bastards, make it not
yours : after the last trumpet is blown, the world and all its glory
will be like an old house that is burnt to ashes, and like an old
fallen castle, without a roof Fy, fy upon us, fools ! who think
ourselves debtors to the world ! My Lord hath brought me to this,
that I would not give a drink of cold water for this world's kind-
ness. I wonder that men long after, love, or care for these feath-
ers. It is almost an unco*^ world to me, to think, that men are so
mad as to block ^ with dead earth : to give out conscience, and get
in clay again, is a strange bargain.
I have written my mind, at length, to your husband. Write to
me again his case. I cannot forget him in my prayers : I am look-
ing.^ Christ hath some claim to him. My counsel is, that ye
bear with him when passion overtaketh him. A soft answer put-
teth away wrath. Answer him in what he speaketh, and apply
yourself in the fear of God to him ; and then ye will remove a
pound weight of your heavy cross, that way, and so it shall be-
come light.
When Christ hideth himself, wait on, and make din till he re-
i Degree. 2 Strange. 3 Bargain.
* That is, for an answer. Ps. v. 3.
176 Rutherford's letters.
turn ; it is not time then to be carelessly patient. I love to be
grieved when he hideth his smiles ; yet believe his love in a pa-
tient on-waiting and believing in the dark. Ye must learn to
swim and hold up your head above the water, even when the
sense of his presence is not with you to hold up your chin : I trust
in God that he will bring your ship safe to land. I counsel you
to study sanctification, and to be dead to this world. Urge kind-
ness on Knockbrex. Labor to benefit by his company — the man
is acquainted with Christ.
I beg the help of your prayers, for I forget not you. Counsel
your husband to fulfil my joy, and to seek the Lord's face. Show
him, from me, that my joy and desire is to hear that he is in the
Lord. God casteth hira often in my mind ; I cannot forget him.
I hope Christ and he have something, to do together. Bless John
from me. I write blessings to him, and to your husband, and to
the rest of your children. Let it not be said, " I am not in your
house," through neglect of the sabbath-exercise.
Your lawful, and loving pastor in his only, only Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 20, 1637.
LETTER CIIL
TO JONET MACCULLOCH.
Dear Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you — I long to
hear how your soul prospereth.
I am as well as a prisoner of Christ can be, feasted and made
fat with the comforts of God. Christ's kisses are made sweeter to
my soul than ever they were. I would not change my Master
with all the kings of clay upon the earth. Oh ! my Well-beloved
is altogether lovely, and loving. I care not Avhat flesh can do.
I persuade my soul that I delivered the truth of Christ to you.
Slip not from it for any boasts ' or fear of men. If ye go against
the truth of Christ that I now suffer for, I shall bear witness
against you in the day of Christ.
Sister, fasten your grips fast on Christ. Follow not the guises
of this sinful world. Let not this clay portion of earth take up
your soul : it is the portion of bastards, and ye are a child of God ;
and, therefore, seek your Father's heritage. Send up your heart
to see the dwelling house and fair rooms in the New City. Fy, fy,
upon those who cry, " Up with the world, and down with con-
science and Heaven !" We have bairns' wuts, and therefore we
cannot prize Christ aright. Counsel your husband, and mother to
make them ready for eternity — that day is drawing nigh.
Pray for me, the prisoner of Christ ; I cannot forget you.
Your lawful pastor, and brother, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 20, 1637.
1 Threatenings.
Rutherford's letters. 177
LETTER CIV.
TO ALEXANDER GORDON OF KNOCKGRAY.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you — I long
to hear how your soul prospereth. I expected letters from you
ere now.
As for myself, I am here in good case, well feasted with a great
King. At my first coming here, I was that ^ bold as to take up a
jealousy of Christ's love. I said I was cast over the dyke ^ of the
Lord's vineyard, as a dry tree ; but I see that if I had been a
v/ithered branch, the fire would have burned me long ere now : —
blessed be His high name, who hath kept sap in the dry tree.
And now, as if Christ had done the wrong, he hath made amends,
and hath miskent ^ my ravings ; (for a man under the water can-
not well command his judgment, far less his faith and love ;) be-
cause it was a fever, my Lord Jesus forgave me that amongst the
rest. He knoweth that in our aflOlictions we can find a spot in the
fairest face that ever was, even in Christ's face. I would not
have believed that a gloom ^ should have made me to rnisken^
my old Master ; but we must be whiles sick. Sickness is but
kindly to both faith and love. But oh, how exceedingly is a poor
dawted^ prisoner obliged to sweet Jesus ! My tears are sweeter
to me than the laughter of the Fourteen Prelates is to them. The
worst of Christ, even his chaff, is better than the world's corn.
Dear brother, I beseech you, I charge you in the name and au-
thority of the Son of God, to help me to praise his Highness ; and
I charge you, also, to tell all your acquaintance, that my Master
may get many thanks. Oh, if « my hairs, all my members, and
all my bones, were well-tuned tongues, to sing the high praises of
my great and glorious King ! Help me to lift Christ up upon his
throne, and to lift Him up above all the thrones of the clay-kings,
the.dying sceptre-bearers of this world. The prisoner's blessing,
the blessing of him that is separate from his brethren, be upon
them all who will lend me a lift in this work. Show this to that
people with you to whom I sometimes preached.
Brother, my Lord hath brought me to this, that I will not flatter
the world for a drink of water. I am no debtor to clay ; Christ
hath made me dead to that ; I now wonder that ever I was such
a child, long since, as to beg at such beggars ! Fy upon us, who
woo such a bla(;lc-skinned harlot, when we may get such a fair,
fair match in Heaven ! Oh, that I could give up with this clay-
idol, this masked, painted, over-gilded dirt, that Adam's sons
adore ! We make an idol of our will. As many lusts in us, as
many gods ; we are all god-makers : we are all like to lose Christ
the true God, in the throng of these new, and false gods. Scot-
• So. 2 Wall. 3 To misken, not to know.
* Frown. s Fondled. 6 oh, that.
12
178 Rutherford's letters.
land hath cast her crown off her head ; the Virgin-daughter hath
lost her garland. Wo, wo to our Harlot-mother. Our clay is com-
ing, a time when women shall wish they had been childless, and
fathers shall bless miscarrying wombs and dry breasts ; — many
houses great and fair shall be desolate. This Kirk shall sit on
the ground all the night, and the tears shall run down her cheeks.
The sun hath gone down upon her prophets. Blessed are the
prisoners of hope, who can run into their stronghold, and hide
themselves for a little till the indignation be overpast.
Commend me to your wife, your daughters, your son-in-law,
and to A. T. Write to me the case of your Kirk. Grace be with
you.
I am much moved for my brother. I entreat for your kindness
and counsel to him.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 23, 1637.
LETTER CV.
TO THE LADY CARDONESS, ELDER,
Worthy, and Well-beloved in the Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you — I long to hear from you on paper, that I
may know how your soul prosper eth. My desire and longing is,
to hear that ye walk in the truth, and that ye are content to follow
the despised, but most lovely Son of God.
I cannot but recommend him unto you, as your Husband, your
Well-beloved, your Portion, your Comfort, and your Joy. I speak
this of that lovely One, because I praise and commend the ford, (as
we use to speak,) as I find it. He hath watered with his sweet
comforts an oppressed prisoner : He was always.kind to my soul,
but never so kind as now, in my greatest extremities. I dine and
sup with Christ : He visiteth my soul with the visitations of love,
in the night-watches.
I persuade my soul that this is the way to Heaven, and his
own truth I now suffer for. I exhort you, in the name of Christ,
to continue in the truth, which I delivered unto you. Make Christ
sure to your soul ; for your day draweth nigh to an end. Many
slide back now, who seemed to be Christ's friends, and prove dis-
honest to Him ; but be ye faithful to the death, and ye shall have
the crown of life. This span-length of your days, whereof the
Spirit of God speaketh, (Psalm xxxix.,) shall, within a short time,
come to a finger-breadth, and at length to nothing. Oh, how
sweet and comfortable will the feast of a good conscience be to
you, when your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, and
the breath turn cold, and your poor soul come sighing to the
windows of the house of clay of your dying body, and shall long
to be out, and to have the jailer to open the door, that the prisoner
Rutherford's letters. 179
may be set at liberty ! Ye draw nigh the water side : look your
accounts: ask for your Guide to take you to the other side. Let
not the world be your portion ; what have ye to do with dead
clay ? Ye are not a bastard, but a lawfully begotten child ; there-
fore, set your heart on the inheritance. Go up before-hand, and
see your lodging. Look through all your Father's rooms in
Heaven : in your Father's house are many dwelling-places — men
take a view of lands ere they buy them. I know that Christ hath
made the bargain already ; but be kind to the house ye are going
to, and see it often. Set your heart on things that are above,
where Christ is at the right hand of God.
Stir up your husband to mind his own country at home. Coun-
sel him to deal mercifully with the poor people of God under him.
They are Christ's, and not his ; therefore, desire him to show them
merciful dealing and kindness, and to be good to their souls, I de-
sire you to write to me. It may be, that my parish forget me ;
but my witness is in Heaven that I dow' not, I do not forget them :
they are my sighs in the night, and my tears in the day. I think
myself like a husband plucked from the wife of his youth. O
Lord, be my Judge, what joy it would be to my soul, to hear that
my ministry hath left the Son of God among them, and that they
are walkkig in Christ ! Remember my love to your son and
daughter. Desire them from me to seek the Lord in their youth,
and to give him the morning of their days. Acquaint them with
the word of God and prayer.
Grace be with you. Pray for the prisoner of Christ : in my
heart I forget you not.
Your lawful, and loving pastor.
In his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 6, 1637.
^
LETTER CVI.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE, AND CHRISTIAN LADY, MY LADY
VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace to you — I am refreshed with
your letter. The right hand of Him, to whom belong the issues
from death, hath been gracious to that sweet child : I dow' not, I
do not forget him and your Ladyship in my prayers.
Madam, as to your own case, I love careful, and withal doing
complaints ^ of want of practice ; because I observe many who
think it holiness enough to complain, and set themselves at noth-
ing ; as if to say " I am sick," could cure them — they think com-
plaints a good charm for guiltiness. I hope that ye are wrestling
and struggling on, in this dead age, wherein folks have lost tongue,
and legs, and arms for Christ. I urge upon you, madam, a nearer
1 Am not able. 2 Complaints accompanied by exertion.
180 Rutherford's letters.
communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are
curtains to be drawn by' in Christ, tliat we never saw, and new
foldings of love in him. I despair that ever I sliall win^ to the far-
end^ of that love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore, dig
deep ; and sweat and labor, and take pains for him ; and set by
as much time in the day for him as you can*: he will be won with
labor.
I, his exiled prisoner, sought him and he hath rued upon me,
and hath made a moan for^ me, as he doth for his oAvn,
(Jer. xxxi. 20 ; Isaiah xlv. 11 ;) and I know not what to do with
Christ ; his love surroundeth and surchargeth me. I am burdened
with it, but oh, how sweet and lovely is that burden ! I cannot
keep it within me : I am so in love with his love, that if his love
were not in Heaven, I should be unwilling to go thither. Oh,
what weighing, and what telling is in Christ's love ! I fear noth-
ing now so much as the laughing of Christ's cross, and the love-
showers that accompany it. I wonder what he meaneth to put
such a slave at the board-heard,^ at his own elbow. Oh, that
I should lay my black mouth to such a fair, fair, fair face as
Christ's ! But I dare not refuse to be loved : the cause is not in
me, why he hath looked upon me, and loved me ; for he got neither
bud,*^ nor hire of me ; it cost me nothing, it is good-cheap' love.
Oh, the many pound-weights of his love, under which I am sweetly
pressed !
Now, madam, I persuade you, that the greatest part but play
with Christianity ; they put it by-hand^ easily. I thought it had
been an easy thing to be a Christian, and that to seek God had
been at the next door ; but oh, the windings, the turnings, the ups
and the downs that he hath led me throughj and I see yet much
way to the ford. He speaketh with my reins in the night season ;
and in the morning, when I awake, I find his love-arrows, that
he shot at me, sticking in my heart. Who will help me to praise ?
who will come to lift up with me, and set on high his great love ?
and yet I find that a fire-flaught^ of challenges will come out at
midsummer, and question me — but it is only to keep a sinner in
order.
As for friends, I will not think the world to be the world, if that
well go not dry. I trust in God, to use the world as a canny'" or
cunning master doth a knave-servant, (at least God give me
grace to do so ;) he giveth him no handling nor credit, only he
entrusteth him with common errands, wherein he cannot play
the knave, I pray God that I may not give this world the credit
of my joys, and coinforts, and confidence — that were to put Christ
out of his oflice. Nay, I counsel you, madam, from a little ex-
perience, let Christ keep the great seal, and entrust him so as to
hing'' your vessels great and small, and pin your burdens upon
' Aside. 2 Get. 3 Farther end. * Bemoaned.
6 Head of the table. e Bribe. t Gratuitous,
8 Easily, but hastily, and in a superficial manner, discharge its duties.
9 Lightning-flash. i" Prudent, skilful. " Hang,
Rutherford's letters. 181
the Nail fastened in David's house, (Isaiah xxii. 23.) Let me not
be well, if ever they get the tutoring of my comforts. Away,
away with irresponsal ' tutors, that would play me a slip, and then
Christ would laugh at me, and say, " Well-wared ;2 try again ere
ye trust." Now wo is me, for my whorish Mother, the Kiik of
Scotland ! Oh, who will bewail her !
Now the presence of the great Angel of the Covenant be with
you, and that sweet child.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER CVIL
TO A GENTLEWOMAN, UPON THE DEATH OP HER HUSBAND.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I cannot but
rejoice, and withal be grieved, at your case. It hath pleased the
Lord to remove your husband, (my friend, and this Kirk's faithful
professor,) soon to his rest ; but, shall we be sorry that our loss is
his gain, seeing his Lord would want his company no longer ?
Think not much of short summons ; for, seeing, he walked with
his Lord in his life, and desired that Christ should be magnified
in him, at his death, ye ought to be silent and satisfied. When
Christ Cometh for his own, he runneth fast : mercy, mercy to the
saints goeth not at leisure ; love, love in our Redeemer is not
slow, and withal he is homely' with you, who cometh at his
own hand to your house, and intromitteth,^ as a friend, with any-
thing that is yours. I think he would fain borrow and lend with
you. Now he shall meet with the solacious^ company, the fair
flock and blessed bairn-teme ° of the first-born, banqueting at the
marriage-supper of the Lamb. It is a mercy that the poor wan-
dering sheep get a dyke-side in this stormy day, and a leaking
ship a safe harbor, and a sea-sick passenger a sound and soft bed
ashore. Wrath, wrath, wrath from the Lord, is coming upon this
land, that he hath left behind him. Know, therefore, that the
wounds of your Lord Jesus are the wounds of a lover, and that
he will have compassion upon a sad-hearted servant ; and that
Christ hath said, he will have the husband's room in your heart :
he loved you in your first husband's time, and he is but wooing
you still. Give him heart and chair, house and all ; he will not
be made companion with any other ; love is full of jealousies ; he
will have all your love — and who should get it but he 1 I know
that ye allow it upon him. There are comforts both sweet and
satisfying, laid up for you : wait on. Frist '' Christ ; he is an hon-
est debtor.
Now for mine own case, I think some poor body would be glad
1 Irresponsible. 2 Well-deserved. 3 Familiar. * Intermeddleth.
5 Solacing. 6 Whole family of children. ' Give credit to.
182 Rutherford's letters.
of a dawted ^ prisoner's leavings. I have no scarcity of Christ's
love : he hath wasted more comforts upon his poor banished ser-
vant, than would have refreshed many souls. My burden was
once so heavy, that one ounce-weight would have casten the bal-
ance, and broken my back ; but Christ said, " Hold, hold !" to my
sorrow, and hath wiped a bluthered'^ face, which was foul with
weeping. I may joyfully go my Lord's errands, with wages in
my hands. Deferred hopes need not make my dead-sweir,^ (as
we use to say ;) my cross is both my cross and my reward. Oh,
that men would sound his high praises ! I love Christ's worst re-
proaches, his glooms,* his cross, better than all the world's plastered
glory ; my heart is not longing to be back again from Christ's
country ; it is a sweet soil I am come to. I, (if any in the world,)
have good cause to speak much good of him. Oh, Hell were a
good-cheap 5 price to buy him at! Oh, if« all the Three King-
doms were witnesses to my pained, pained soul, overcome with
Christ's love !
I thank you most kindly, my dear sister, for your love to, and
tender care of my brother. I shall think myself obliged to you, if
ye continue his friend. He is more to me than a brother now,
being engaged to suffer for so honorable a Master and cause.
Pray for Christ's Prisoner ; and grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER CVHL
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE AND CHRISTIAN LADY,
MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Upon the oflfered opportunity of this worthy bearer, I
could not omit to answer the heads of your letter.
Istly, I think not much to set down on paper some good things
anent Christ, that Sealed and Holy Thing ; and to feed my soul
with raw wishes to be one with Christ ; for a wish is but broken
and half love ; but verily to obey this, " Come and see," is a hard-
er matter ! But oh, I have rather smoke than fire, and guessings
rather than real assurances of him. I have little or nothing to
say, that I am as one who hath found favor in his eyes ; but there
is some pining and mismannered'' hunger, that maketh me mis-
call ^ and nickname Christ as a changed Lord; but alas! it is
ill-flitten.^ I cannot believe without a pledge. I cannot take
God's word without a caution,'" as if Christ had lost and sold his
1 Cockered. 2 Blurred. 3 Extremely reluctant. * Frowns.
5 Gratuitous. 6 oh, that. 7 Unmannerly.
8 To miscall, to call names, to abuse.
8 Denoting that the criminations or reprehensions of a rebuker come with a very
bad grace from him, because of his being supposed to be equally, or more guilty in the
eame, or in a similar respect. "> Surety.
Rutherford's letters. 183
credit, and were not in my books responsaV and law-biding r^ but
this is my way; for his way is, (Eph. i. 13,) "After that ye be-
heved, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise."
2ndly, Ye write that I am filled with knowledge, and stand not
in need of these warnings ; but certainly my light is dim, when
it Cometh to handy-grips ; ' and how many have full coffers and
yet empty bellies ! Light, and the saving use of light, are far
different. Oh, what need then have I to have the ashes blown
away from my dying-out fire ! I may be a bookman, and be an
idiot and stark fool in Christ's way ! Learning will not beguile
Christ. The Bible beguiled the Pharisees, and so may I be mis-
led. Therefore, as night-watchers hold one another waking, by
speaking to one another, so have we need to hold one another on
foot : sleep stealeth away the light of watching, even the light
that reproveth sleeping. I doubt not but moe would fetch Heaven,
if they believed not Heaven to be at the next door. The world's
negative holiness, no adulterer, no murderer, no thief, no cozener,
maketh men believe they are already glorified saints : but the
sixth chapter to the Hebrews may affright us all, when we hear
that men may take of the gifts and common graces of the Holy
Spirit, and a taste of the powers of the life to come, to Hell with
them. Here is reprobate silver, which yet seemeth to have the
king's image and superscription upon it.
3rdly, I find you complaining of yourself, and it becometh a
sinner so to do. I am not against you in that ; sense of death is
a sib friend,^ and of kin and blood to life ; the more sense, the
more life ; the more sense of sin, tbe less sin. I would love my
pain and soreness, and my wounds, howbeit these should bereave
me of my night's sleep, better than my wounds without pain.
Oh, how sweet a thing it is, to give Christ his handful of broken
arms and legs, and disjointed bones !
4tbly, Be not afraid for little grace ; Christ soweth his living
seed, and he will not lose his seed : if he have the guiding of my
stock and state, it shall not miscarry. Our spilled^ works, losses,
deadness, coldness, wretchedness, are the ground upon which the
Good Husbandman laboreth.
5thly, Ye write that his compassions fail not, notwithstanding
that your service to Christ miscarrieth ; to the which I answer,
"God forbid that there were buying and selling, and blocking* for
as good again, betwixt Christ and us : for then free grace might
go to play, and a Saviour sing dumb,'' and Christ go to sleep. But
we go to Heaven with light shoulders, and all the bairn-teme,^ and
the vessels great and small that we have, are fastened upon the
safe Nail," (Isa. xxii. 23, 24.) The only danger is, that we give
grace more to do than God giveth it, that is, by turning his grace
into wantonness.
6tlily, Ye write, that few see your guiltiness, and that ye can-
• Responsible. 2 Awaitin<r, or standing by a sentence of law.
3 Close struggling. ^ Near relative. s Spoiled, ruined.
6 Planning of bargains. '? Be silenced. 8 Whole family of children.
184 Rutherford's letters.
not be free with many, as with me : I answer, " Blessed be God,
that Christ and we are not heard before men's courts ; it is at home
betwixt him and us, that pleas are taken away."
Grace be witii you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CIX.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE, AND CHRISTIAN LADY, MY
LADY BOYD.
Madam,— Grace, mercy, and peace be to you, from God our
Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I cannot but thank your Ladyship, for your letter, that hath re-
freshed my soul. I think myself many ways obliged to your Lady-
ship foi- your love to my afflicted brother, now embarked with me
in that same cause. His Lord hath been pleased to put him on
truth's side. I hope that your Ladyship will befriend him with
your counsel and countenance in that country, where he is a
strang-er ; and your Ladyship needeth not fear but your kindness
to his own will be put up into Christ's accounts.
Now, madam, for your Ladyship's case, I rejoice exceedingly,
that the Father of hghts hath made you see that there is a nick '
in Christianity, which ye contend to be at ; and that is, to quit the
right eye, and the right hand, and to keep the Son of God. I hope
your desire is to make him your garland, and that your eye look-
eth up the mount, Avhich certainly is nothing but the new creature.
Fear not, Christ will not cast Avater upon your smoking coal ; and
then, who else dare do it if he say nay ? Be sorry at corruption,
and be not secure. That companion lay with you in your mother's
womb, and was as early friends with you as the breath of life ;
and Christ will not have it otherwise ; for he delighteth to take up
fallen bairns, and to mend broken brows ; — binding up of wounds
is his office, (Isaiah, Ixi.) First, I am glad that Christ will get
employment of his calling in you. Many a whole soul is in
Heaven, which was sicker than ye are. He is content, that ye lay
broken arms and legs on his knee, that he may spelk^ them.
Secondly, Hiding of his face is wise love, — his love is not fond,
doting, and reasonless, — to give your head no other pillow, whill
ye be in at Heaven's gates, but to lye between his breasts, and lean
upon his bosom. Nay, his bairns must often have the frosty cold
side of the hill, and set down both their bare feet among thorns :
his love hath eyes, and in the meantime is looking on. Our pride
must have winter weather to rot it. But I know that Christ arid
ye will not be heard. Ye will whisper it over betwixt yourselves,
and agree again ; for the anchor-tow ^ abideth fast within the veil :
the end of it is in Christ's ten fingers — who dare pull if he hold ?
1 Notch, degree. 2 J'o spelk, to bind up with splints. 3 Cable.
Rutherford's letters. 185
"I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right, hand, saying, Fear not,
I will help thee. Fear not, Jacob." (Isa. xli. 13, 14.) The sea-
sick passenger shall come to land- — Christ will be the first that will
meet you on the shore. I hope that your Ladyship will keep the
King's highway. Go on, in the strength of the Lord, in haste, as
if ye had not leisure to speak to the inn-keepers by the way — He
is over beyond time on the other side of the water, w^io thinketh
long ' for you.
For my nnfaithful self, madam, I must say a word. At my first
coming hither, the Devil made many a black lie of my Lord Jesus,
and said the court was changed, and he was angry, and would
give an evil servant his leave ^ at mid-term. But he gave me
grace not to take my leave f I resolved to bide summons, and sit,
howbeit it was suggested and said, "What should be done with a
withered tree, but over the dyke^ with it?" But now, now, (I
dare not, I dow not^ keep it up,) who is feasted as his poor exiled
prisoner? I think shame of the board-head ^ and the first-mess,
and the royal King's dining-hall, and that my black hand should
come upon such a ruler's table. But I cannot mend it, Christ
must have his will : only he paineth my soul so, sometimes wuth
his love, that I have been nigh to pass modesty, and to cry out, he
hath left a smoking, burning coal in my heart, and gone to the
door himself, and left me and it together. Yet it is not desertion :
I know not what it is, but I was never so sick for him as now. I
durst not challenge ^ my Lord, if I got no more for Heaven, it is a
dawting" cross. I know he hath other things to do than to play
with me, and trindle^ an apple with me, and that this feast will
end. Oh, for instruments ^ in God's name, that this is he ! and
that I may make use of it, when it may be, a near friend within
me will say, and when it will be said by a challenging '° devil,
" Where is thy God ?" Since I know that it will not last, I desire
but to keep broken meat : but let no man after me slander Christ
for Ins cross.
The great Lord of the Covenant, who brought from the dead
the great Shepherd of his sheep, by the blood of the Eternal Cove-
nant, establish you, and keep you and yours, to his appearance !
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER ex.
TO THE LADY KASKIBERRY.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you — I long to hear
how your Ladyship is. I know not how to requite your Lady-
1 Longeth. 2 Discharge from service. 3 Wall. * Am not able.
s Head of the table. 6 Upbraid. 7 Fondling.
8 To trundle. ^ Documents in proof. " Upbraiding.
186 xxi^therford's letters.
ship's kindness ; but your love to the saints, madam, is laid up in
Heaven : I know it is for your well-beloved Christ's sake, that ye
make his friends so dear to you, and concern, yourself so much in
them.
I am in this house of pilgrimage, every way in good ease :
Christ is most kind and loving to my soul. It pleaseth him to
feast, with his unseen consolations, a stranger and an exiled
prisoner: and I would not exchange my Lord Jesus with all the"'
comfort out of Heaven. — His yoke is easy, and his burden is light.
This is his truth which I now suffer for ; for he hath sealed it
with his blessed presence : I know that Christ shall yet win the
day, and gain the battle in Scotland. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER CXL
TO THE LADY EARLSTON.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I long to hear
how your soul prospereth. I exhort you to go on in your journey ;
your day is short, and your afternoon-sun will soon go down.
Make an end of your accounts with your Lord ; for death and
judgment are tides that bide ' no man. Salvation is supposed to
be at the door, and Christianity is thought an easy task : but I
find it hard, and the way strait and narrow, were it not that my
Guide is content to wait on me, and to care for a tired traveller.
Hurt not your conscience with any known sin. Let your children
be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or
wither, thank God for a summer loan of them, and keep good
neighborhood, to borrow and lend "^ with him. Set your heart upon
Heaven, and trouble not your spirit with this clay-idol of the world,
which is but vanity, and hath but the lustre of the rainbow in the
air, which cometh and goeth with a flying March-shower : — clay
is the idol of bastards, not the inheritance of tlie children.
My Lord hath been pleased to make many unknown faces laugh
upon me, and hath made me well-content of a borrowed fire-side,
and a borrowed bed. I am feasted with the joys of the Holy
Ghost, and my royal King beareth my charges honorably. I love
the smell of Christ's sweet breath better than the world's gold. I
would I had help to praise him.
The great Messenger of the Covenant, the Son of God, establish
you on your Rock, and keep you to the day of his coming.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
' To hide, to wait for. 2 To be on the most ultimate terms with.
Rutherford's letters. 187
LETTER CXII.
TO HIS REVEREND, AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. DAVID DICKSON.
Reverend, and Dearest Brother, — What joy have I out
of Heaven's gates, but that my Lord Jesus be glorified in my
bonds ? Blessed be ye of the Lord, who contribute anything to
my obliged and indebted praises. Dear brother, help me, a poor
dyvour,' to pay the interest, for I cannot come nigh to render the
principal. It is not jest nor sport which maketh me to speak and
write as I do : I never before came to that nick * or pitch of com-
munion with Christ, that I have now attained to. For my con-
firmation, I have been these two Sabbaths or three in private,
taking instruments ^ in the name of God, that my Lord Jesus and
I have kissed each other in Aberdeen, the house of my pilgrimage.
I seek not an apple to play me with. He knoweth, whom I serve
in the Spirit, but a seal. I but beg earnest, and am content to
suspend and frist^ glory whill supper-time. I know that this
world will not last with me ; for my moonlight is noon-day light,
and my four-hours ^ above my feasts, when I was a preacher; at
which times, also, I was embraced very often in his arms. But
who can blame Christ to take me on behind him, if I may say so,
on his white horse, or in his chariot, paved with love, through a
water ? Will not a father take his little dawted Davie « in his
arms, and carry him over a ditch or a mire ? My short legs could
not step over this lair,'' or sinking mire ; and, therefore, my Lord
Jesus will bear me through. If a change come, and a dark day,
so being that he will keep my faith without flaw or crack, I dare
not blame him, howbeit I get no more whill I come to Heaven.
But ye know that the physic behooved to have sugar ; my faith
was fallen aswoon,^ and Christ but held up a swooning man's
head. Indeed I pray not for a daw^ted » bairn's diet ; he knoweth
that I would have Christ, sour or sweet ; any way, so being it be
Christ indeed. I stand not now upon pared apples, or sugared
dishes ; but I cannot blame him to give. I must gape and make
a wide mouth. Since Christ will not pantry up'" joys, he must be
welcome, who will not bide away. I seek no other fruit, than that
he may be glorified ; he knoweth that I would take hard fare to
have his name set on high.
I bless you for your counsel. I hope to live by faith, and swim
without a mass or bundle of joyful sense under my chin ; at least,
to venture, albeit I should be ducked.
1 Bankrupt. 2 Notch, degree.
3 To take instruments, is for a person who has an interest in a court to declare, upon
a decision, that he claims the benefit of that decision, and views the matter as finished.
< Tofrist, to postpone, in the hope, however, of ultimately possessing.
5 Slight afternoon's repasts. ^ Little fondled boy.
T Bog, in which one must sink. 8 in a swoon.
9 Fondled. '" That is, lock up in the pantry.
RUTHERFORD S LETTERS.
Now for my case : I think that the coimcil should be essayed,
and the event referred to God : — duties are ours, and events are
God's.
I shall go through 5^ours upon the Covenant at leisure, and
write to you my mind there-anent ; ' and anent the Arminian
contract betwixt the Father and the Son. I beseech you, set to,*
to go through Scripture. Yours on the Hebrews is in great re-
quest with all who would be acquainted with Christ's Testament.
I purpose, God wilhng, to set about Hosea, and to try if I can get
it to the press here.
It refresheth me much, that ye are so kind to my brother. I
hope your council will do him good. I recommend him to you,
since 1 am so far from him. I am glad that the dying servant of
God, famous and faithful Mr. Cunningham, sealed your ministry
before he fell asleep.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER CXIIL
TO JEAN BROWN,
Well-beloved, and Dear Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you — I received your letter, which I esteem an evidence of
your Christian affection to me, and of your love to my honorable
Lord and Master. My desire is, that your communion with Christ
may grow, and that your' reckonings may be put by hand^ with
your Lord ere ye come to the water-side.
Oh, who knoweth how sweet Christ's kisses are ! Who hath
been more kindly embraced and kissed than I, his banished pris-
oner? If the comparison could stand, I would not exchange
Christ with Heaven itself He hath left a dart and arrow of love
in my soul, and it paineth me till he come and taketh it out. I
find pain of these wounds, because I would have possession. I
know now that this worm-eaten apple, the plastered, rotten world,
which the silly children of this world are beating and buffeting,
and pulling each other's ears for, is a portion for bastards good
enough ; and that it is all they have to look for. I am not of-
fended that my adversaries stay at home at their own fireside, with
more yearly rent than I. Should I be angry that the Good-
man of this house of the world casteth a dog a bone to hurt
his teeth ? He hath taught me to be content with a borrowed
fire-side, and an unco^ bed ; and I think I have lost nothing, the
income is so great. Oh, what telhng is in Christ ! Oh, how
weighty is my fair garland, my crown, my fair supping-hall in
1 Concerning it. 2 To set to, to determine, to begin.
3 Concluded. * Strange.
Rutherford's letters
189
glory, where I shall be above the blows and buffetings of prelates!
Let this be your desire, and let your thoughts dwell much upon
that blessedness that abidetli you in the other world. The fair
side of the world will be turned to you quickly, when ye shall
see the crown. I hope that ye are near your lodging. Oh ! but
I would think myself blessed, for my part, to win to ' the house
before the shower come on ! for God hath a quiver full of arrows
to shoot at, and shower down upon Scotland.
Ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ. I desire Patrick
to give Christ his young love, even the flowers of it, and to put it
by all others. It were good to start soon to the way ; he should
thereby have a great advantage in the evil day. Grace be with
you.
Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen,' March 7, 1637.
LETTER CXIV.
TO MR. JOHN FERGUSHILL.
Reverend, and Well-beloved in the Lord, — I was re-
freshed with your letter. I am sorry for that lingering and long-
some visitation that is upon your wife ; but I know that ye take
it as the mark of a lawfully begotten child, and not of a bastard,
to be under your Father's rod. Till ye be in Heaven, it will be
but foul weather — one shower up and another down. The lintel-
stone and pillars of the New Jerusalem suffer more knocks of
God's hammer and tool than the common side-wall stones: and
if twenty crosses be written for you in God's book, they will come
to nineteen, and then, at last, to one, and after that to nothing ;
but your head shall he betwixt Christ's breasls for evermore, and
his own soft hand shall dry your face ; and wipe away your tears.
As for public sufferings for his truth, your Master also will see to
these. Let us put him into his own office, to comfort and deliver.
The gloom^ of Christ's cross is worse than itself
I cannot keep up what he hath done to my soul. My dear
brother, will I not get help of you to praise, and to lift Christ up
on high ? He hath pained me with his love, and hath left a love-
arrow in my heart, that hath made a wound, and swelled me up
with desires, so that I am to be pitied for want of real possession.
Love would have the company of the party loved : and my great-
est pain is the want of him, not of his joys and comforts, but of a
near union and communion.
This is his truth, I am fully persuaded, which I now suffer for :
for Christ hath taken upon him to be witness to it by his sweet
comforts to my soul ; and shall I think him a false witness, or
that he would subscribe blank paper? I thank his high and
' Reach. 2 Frown.
190 Rutherford's letters.
dreadful name for what he hath given. I hope to keep his seal
and his pawn till he come and loose it himself. I defy Hell to put
me off it. But he is Christ, and he hath met with his prisoner,
and I took instruments in his own hand ' that it was he, and none
other for him. When the Devil fenceth^ a bastard-court in my
Lord's ground, and giveth me forged summons, it will be my
shame to misbelieve,^ after such a fair, broad seal : and yet Satan
and my apprehension sometimes make a lie of Christ, as if he
hated me ; but I dare believe no evil of Christ. If he would cool
my love-fever for himself with real presence and possession, I would
be rich ; but I dare not be mislearned,^ and seek more in that kind,
howbeit it be no shame to beg at Christ's door. I pity my adver-
saries. I grudge not that my liOrd keepeth them at their own
fire-side, and hath given me a borrowed bed and a borrowed fire-
side : — let the good-man of the house cast the dog a bone ! why
should I take offence ? I rejoice that the broken bark shall come
to land, and that Christ will, on the shore, welcome the sea- sick
passenger. We have need of a great stock against this day of
trial that is coming. There is neither chaff nor corn in Scotland,
but it shall once pass through God's sieve. Praise, praise, and
pray for me ; for I cannot forget you. I know that ye will be
friendly to nsy afTi' cd 'lother, who is now embarked in the same
cause with me. Let him have your counsel and comforts.
Remember ray love in Christ to your wife ; her health is coming,
and her salvation sleepeth not. Ye have the prayers and blessing
of a prisoner in Christ. Sow fast, deal bread plentifully. The
pantry-door will be locked on the bairns, in appearance, ere long.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER CXV.
TO HIS REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. ROBERT DOUGLAS.
My very Reverend, and Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you — I long to see you on paper. I cannot but
write you, that this which I now suffer for is Christ's truth ; be-
cause he hath been pleased to seal my sufferings with joy un-
speakable and glorious. I know that he will not put his seal upon
blank paper ; Christ hath not dumb seals, neither will he be a
witness to a lie. I beseech you, my dear brother, to help me to
praise, and to lift Christ up on his throne above the shields of
the earth. I am astonished and confounded at the greatness of
his kindness to such a sinner. I know that Christ and I shall
never be even f I shall die in his debt. He hath left an arrow in
I That is, I declared, and claimed that the declaration might be recorded for evi-
dence. 2 Openeth. 3 Not to believe aright.
* Ill-bred. s Quits.
Rutherford's letters. 191
my heart that paineth me for want of real possession ; and Hell
cannot quench this coal of God's kindling. I wish no man to
slander Christ, or his cross, for my cause : for I have much cause
to speak much good of him ; he hath brought me to a nick ' and
degree of communion with himself that I knew not before. The
din and gloom ^ of our Lord's cross is more fearful and hard than
the cross itself He takeththe bairns in his arms when they come
to a deep water; at least, when they lose ground, and are put to
swim, then his hand is under their chin.
Let me be helped by your prayers ; and remember my love to
your kind wife. Grace be with you.
Your Brother, and Christ's Prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER CXVI.
TO THE MUCH HONORED WILLIAM RIGGE, OF ATHERNIE.
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I
received your long-looked-for and short letter •, I woidd that ye had
spoken more to me, who stand in need. I find Christ, as ye write,
aye the longer the better, and, therefore, cannot but rejoice in His
salvation, who hath made my chains my wings, and hath made
me a king over my crosses, and over my adversaries : — glory, glory,
glory to his high, high and holy name ! Not one ounce, not one
grain-weight more is laid on me than he hath enabled me to bear ;
and 1 am not so much wearied to suffer as Zion's haters are to
persecute. Oh, if^ I could find a way in any measure, to strive
to be even with Christ's love ! but that I must give over. Oh,
who would help a dyvour^ to pay praises to the King of saints,
who triumpheth in his weak servants !
I see that if Christ but ride upon a worm or feather, his horse
will neither stumble nor fall. The worm Jacob is made by him a
new, sharp, threshing instrument, having teeth to thresh the
mountains, and beat them small, and to make the hills as chaff,
and to fan them, so as the wind shall carry them away, and the
whirlwind shall scatter them, (Isa. xli. 14, 15, 16.) Cbrist's ene-
mies are but breaking their own heads in pieces, upon the Rock
laid in Zion, and the Stone is not removed out of its place. Faith
hath cause to take courage from our very aflllictions ; the Devil is
but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and patience of the saints.
I know that he but heweth and polisheth stones all this time for
the New Jerusalem.
But in all this, three things have much moved me, since it hath
pleased my Lord to turn my moon-light into day-light. First he
hath yoked ^ me to work, to wrestle with Christ's love of longing,
1 Degree. 2 Frown. 3 oh, that.
* Bankrupt. s Bound.
193 Rutherford's letters.
wherewith I am sick, pained, fainting, and like to die, because I
cannot get himself, which I think a strange sort of desertion ; for
I have not himself, (whom if I had, my love-sickness would cool,
and my fever go away ; at least, I should know the heat of the
fire of complacency, which would cool the scorching heat of the
fire of desire,) and yet I have no penury of his love ; and so I
dwine,^ 1 die, and he seemeth not to rue on me. I take instru-
ments in his hand, 2 that I would have him, but I cannot get him ;
and my best cheer is black hunger ; — I bless him for that feast.
Secondly, Old challenges^ now and then revive, and cast all
down ; I go halting and sighing, fearing there be an unseen pro-
cess yet coming out, and that heavier than I can answer. I can-
not read distinctly my surety's act of cautionry^ for me in partic-
ular, and my discharge ; and sense, rather than faith, assureth
me. of what I have ; — so unable am I to go,^ but by a hold. I
could, Avith reverence of my Lord, forgive Christ, if he would give
me as much faith as I have hunger for him. I hope the pardon
is now obtained, but the peace is not so sure to me as I would
wish: yet, one thing I know, there is not a way to Heaven but
the way which he hath graced me to profess and suffer for.
Thirdly, Wo, wo is me for the Virgin-daughter of Scotland,
and for the fearful desolation and wrath appointed for this land ;
and j^et all are sleeping, eating, and drinking, laughing and sport-
ing, as if all were well. Oh our dim gold ! our dumb, blind pas-
tors ! the sun is gone down upon them, and our nobles bid Christ
fend for' himself, if he be Christ. It were good, that we should
learn in time, the way to our stronghold.
Sir, howbeit not acquainted, remember my love to your wife.
I pray God to establish you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 9, 1637.
LETTER CXVIL
TO MR. ALEXANDER HENDERSON.
My Reverend, and Dear Brother, — I received your letters.
They are as apples of gold to me, for with my sweet feasts, (and
they are above the deserving of such a sinner, high and out of
measure.) I have sadness to ballast me, and weight '' me a little.
It is but his boundless wisdom which hath taken the tutoring of
His witless child ; and, he knoweth that to be drunken with
comforts is not safest for our stomachs. However it be, the din,
and noise, and glooms ^ of Christ's cross are weightier than itself
1 Pine away.
2 That is, I declare in Christ's court, and I claim that the declaration be recorded
in order that it may become evidence. 3 Self-accusations. * Suretyship.
5 Walk. 6 Shift for. ^ Depress. 8 Frowns. .
Rutherford's letters. 193
I protest to you, (my witness is in Heaven,) that I could wish
many pound-weights added to my cross, to know that by my
sufferiuGi's Christ were set forward in his kingly office in this
land. Oh ! what is my skin to his glory ; or my losses, or my
sad heart, to the apple of the eye of our Lord, and his beloved
spouse, his precious truth, his royal privileges, the glory of mani-
fested justice in giving of his foes a dash, the testimony of his
faithful servants, who do glorify him, when he rideth upon poor
weak worms, and triumpheth in them ? I desire you to pray,
that I may come out of this furnace with honesty, and that I may
leave Christ's truth no worse than I found it ; and that this most
honorable cause may neither be stained nor weakened.
As for 3'our cause, my reverend, and dearest brother, ye are the
talking of the north and south ; and looked to so as if ye were all
crystal glass. Your motes and dust would soon be proclaimed,
and trumpets blown at yoiu" slips ; but I know that ye have laid
help upon One that is mighty. Intrust not your comforts to men's
airy and frothy applause, neither lay your down-castings on the
tongues of salt ' mockers and reproachers of godhness. " As de-
ceivers, and yet true ; as unknown, and yet still known," God hath
called you to Christ's side, and the wind is now in Christ's face in
this land ; and seeing ye are with him, ye cannot expect the lee-
side, or the sunny side of the brae.^ But I know that ye have
resolved to take Christ upon any terms whatsoever. I hope that
ye do not rue, though your cause be hated, and prejudices are
taken up against it. The shields of the world think our Master
cumbersome wares, and that he maketh too great din, and that
his cords and yokes make blains and deep scores in their neck ;
therefore, they kick. They say "This man shall not reign over
us."
Let us pray one for another. He, who hath made you a chosen
arrow in his quiver, hide you in the hollow of his hand ! I am
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 9, 1G37.
LETTER CXVm.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE MY LORD LOUDON.
My VERY Noble, and Honorable Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. I make bold to write to your Lordship, that
you may know the honorable cause which ye are graced to pro-
fess, is Christ's own truth. Ye are many ways blessed of God,
who have taken upon you to come out to the streets with Christ
on your forehead, when so many are ashamed of him, and hide
him, as it were, under their cloak, as if he were a stolen Christ.
1 Bitter.
2 Slope. Sunny side of the brae, the most warm, sheltered, and comfortable situa-
tion. '
13
194
RUTHERFORD'S LETTERS.
If this faithless generation, (and especially the nobles of this king-
dom,) thought not Christ dear wares, and religion expensive,
hazardous, and dangerous, they would not slip from liis cause as
they do, and stand looking on with their hands folded behind
their back when louns ^ are running with the spoil of Zion on
their back, and the boards of the Son of God's tabernacle. Law
and justice are to be had by any, especially for money and moyen ; ^
but Christ can get no law, good-cheap,^ or dear. It were the glory
and honor of you, who are the nobles of this land, to plead for
your wronged Bridegroom, and his oppressed spouse, as far as
zeal, and standing law will go with you. Your ordinary logic
from the event, that it will do no good to the cause, and, therefore,
silence is best, till the Lord put-to his own hand, is not, (with rev-
erence to your Lordship's learning,) worth a straw. Events are
God's. Let us do, and not plead against God's office. Let Him
sit at his own helm, who moderateth all events. It is not a good
course to complain that we cannot get a providence of gold, when
our laziness, cold zeal, temporizing, and faithless fearfulness spil-
leth^ good providence.
Your Lordship will pardon me ; I am not of that mind, that
tumults or arms is the way to put Christ on his throne : or that
Christ will be served, and truth vindicated, only with the arm of
flesh and blood : nay, Christ doth his turn with less din, than
with garments rolled in blood. But I would that the zeal of God
were in the nobles to do their part for Christ : and I must be par-
doned to write to your Lordship this.
I dow not,^ I dare not, but speak to others what God hath done
to the soul of his poor, afflicted exile Prisoner. His comfort is
more than I ever knew before ; he hath sealed the honorable
cause which I now suffer for, and I shall not believe that Christ
will put his amen, and ring^ upon an imagination. He hath
made all his promises good to me, and hath filled vrp all the blanks
with his own hand. I would not exchange my bonds with the
plastered joy of this whole world. It hath pleased him to make a
sinner, the like of me, an ordinary banqueter in his house-of-wine,
with that royal princely One, Christ Jesus. Oh what weighing !
Oh what telling is in his love ! How sweet must he be, when
that black and burdensome tree, his own cross, is so perfumed
with joy and gladness ! Oh, for help to lift him up by praises on
his royal throne ! I seek no more than that his name may be
spread abroad in me, that meikle^ good may be spoken of Christ
on my behalf; and this being done, my losses, place, stipend,
credit, ease, and liberty, shall all be made up to my full content-
ment and joy of heart.
I shall be confident that your Lordship will go on in the strength
of the Lord, and keep Christ, and avouch him, that he may read
I Scoundrels, low, worthless fellows. 2 Interest.
3 Very cheap, gratuitous. * Spoileth.
5 I am not able, indeed I have not courage to refrain from speaking.
* Assure as by the marriage covenant. i Much.
Rutherford's letters. 195
your name publicly before men and angels. I shall entreat, your
Lordship to exhort and encourage that Nobleman, your Chief/ to
do the same ; bat T am wo ^ that many of you find a new Avisdom,
which deserveth not such a name — it were better that men would
see that their wisdom be holy, and their holiness wise.
I must be bold to desire your Lordship to add to your former
favors to me, (for the which your Lordship hath a prisoner's bless-
ing and prayers,) this, that ye would be pleased to befriend my
brother, now suffering for the same cause ; foi- as he is to dwell
nigh your Lordship's bounds, your Lordship's word and counte-
nance may help him.
Thus recommending your Lordship to the saving grace, and
tender mercy of Christ Jesus, our Lord, I rest,
Your Lordship's obliged servant in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 9, 1637.
LETTER CXIX.
TO MR. WILLIAM DALGLEISH, MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL.
Reverend, and Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you — I am well. My Lord .Tesus is kinder to me than ever
he was. It pleaseth him to dine and sup with his afflicted prisoner :
a King feasteth me, and his spikenard casteth a sweet smell. Put
Christ's love to the trial, and put upon it our burdens, and then it
will appear love indeed : we employ not his love, and, therefore,
we know it not. I verily count the sufferings of my Lord more
than this world's lustred ^ and over-gilded glory. I dare not say
but my Lord Jesus hath fully recompensed my sadness with his
joys, my losses with his own presence. I find it a sweet and rich
thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, my afflictions
with that sweet peace I have with himself.
Brother, this is his own truth I now suffer for. He hath sealed
my sufferings with his own comforts, and I know that he will not
put his seal upon blank paper ; his seals are not dumb nor delu-
sive, to confirm imaginations and lies. Go on, my dear brother, in
the strength of the Lord, not fearing man, who is a worm, nor the
son of man that shall die. Providence hath a thousand keys, to
open a thousand sundry doors for the dehverance of his own, when
it is even come to a conclmnatuin est.* Let us be faithful ; and
care for our own part, which is to do and suffer for him, and lay
Christ's part on himself, and leave it there. Duties are ours,
1 The Earl of Argyll, Chief of the Clan Campbell. 2 Grieved.
3 Lustrous.
< That is, when it is quite desperate, when it is given up for lost. A form of speeeh
taken from a custom among the Romans, of calling upon a person, who had died,
several times by his name. Hence those, who had given up a friend for lost, or who
supposed him to be dead, were said eum condamavisse ; in like manner it was said of
a thing when it was reckoned quite desperate, condamatum est, " all is over."
196 Rutherford's letters.
events are the Lord's. When our faith goeth to meddle with
events, and to hold a court (if I may so speak) upon God's provi-
dence, and beginneth to say, ''How wilt thou do this and that?"
we lose ground. We have nothing to do there. It is our part to
let the Almighty exercise his own office, and steer his own helm.
There is nothing left to us, but to see how we may be ajjproved
of him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls in
well-doing upon Him, who is God omnipotent : and when what
we thus essay miscarrieth, it will neither be our sin nor cross.
Brother, remember the Lord's word to Peter ; "Simon, lovest
thou me? Feed my sheep." No greater testimony of our love to
Christ can be, than to feed carefully and faithfully his lambs.
I am in no better neighborhood with the ministers here than
before : they cannot endure that any speak of me, or to me. Thus
1 am, in the meantime, silent, which is my greatest grief. Dr.
Barron hath often disputed with me, especially about Arminian
controversies, and for the ceremonies. Three yokings * laid him
by ; and I have not been troubled with him since. Now, he hath
appointed a dispute before witnesses ; I trust that Christ and truth
will do for themselves.
I hope, brother, that ye will help my people ; and write to me
what you hear the Bishop is to do with them. Grace be with you.
Your brother in bonds, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXX.
TO MR. HUGH MACKAIL, MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL.
Reverend, and Dear Brother, — I bless you for your letter.
— He*^ is come down as rain upon the mown grass; he hath re-
vived my withered root ; and he is the dew of herbs. , I am most
secure in this prison : salvation is for walls in it ; and what think
ye of these walls? He maketh the dry plant to bud as the lily,
and to blossom as Lebanon ; — the great Husbandman's blessing
Cometh down upon the plants of righteousness. Who may say
this, my dear brother, if I, his poor exiled stranger and prisoner,
may not say it ? Howbeit all the world should be silent, I cannot
hold my peace. Oh, how many black accounts have Christ and
I rounded over together in the house of my pilgrimage ! and how
fat a portion he hath given to a hungry soul ! I had rather have
Christ's four-hours,3 than have dinner and supper both in one from
any other — his dealing, and the way of his judgments are past
finding out. No preaching, no book, no learning could give me
that, which it behooved me to come and get in this town. But
what of all this, if I were not misted,* and confounded, and aston-
1 A set-to. Yoking is properly the time during which a horse is in the yoke.
2 In the Scottish dialect, He is often used, as X1M is in Hebrew, as a name of God.
8 Slight afternoon refreshment. * Bewildered.
Rutherford's letters. 197
ished how to be thankful, and how to get hira praised for ever-
more ? And, what is more, he hath been pleased to pain me with
his love, and my pain groweth through want of real possession.
Some have written to me, that I am possibly too joyful of the
cross ; but jny joy overleapeth the cross, it is bounded and termi-
nated upon Christ. I know that the sun will over-cloud and
eclipse, and that I shall again be put to walk in the shadow : but
Christ must be welcome to come and go, as he thinketh meet.
Yet he would be more welcome to me, I trow, to come, than to go ;
and I hope he pitieth and pardoneth me, in casting apples to me,
at such a fainting time as this — holy, and blessed is his name. It
was not my flattering of Christ that drew a kiss from his mouth :
but he would send me as a spy into this wilderness of suffering,
to see tlie land, and try the ford ; and I cannot make a lie of
Christ's cross ; I can report nothing but good both of him and it,
lest others should faint. 1 hope, when a change cometh, to cast
anchor at midnight upon the Rock, (which he hath taught me to
know in this day-light,) whither I may run, when I must say my
lesson without book, and believe in the dark. I am sure it is sin
to tarrow ^ at Christ's good meat, and not to eat when he saith,
" Eat, O well-beloved, and drink abundantly." If he bear me on
his back, or carry me in his arms over this water, I hope for grace
to set down my feet on dry ground, when the way is better : but
this is slippery ground ; my Lord thought good I should go by a
hold, and lean on my Well-beloved's shoulder — it is good to be
ever taking from him. I desire that he may get the fruit of
praises, for dawting,'' and thus dandling me on his knee : and I
may give my bond of thankfulness, so being I have Christ's back-
bond ^ again for my relief, that I shall be strengthened by his
powerful grace, to pay my vows to him. But, truly, I find that we
have the advantage of the brae* upon our enemies : we are more
than conquerors through Him who loved us ; and they know not
wherein our strength lyeth.
Pray for me. Grace be with you.
Your brother in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXXI.
TO MY LADY BOYD,
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you — The Lord hath
brought me to Aberdeen, where 1 see God in few. This town hath
been advised upon of purpose for me ; it consisteth of Papists, or
1 To feel reluctance, especially from some pettish humor.
2 Fondling, making much of
3 A bond given by one who has received a previous bond, engaging that the person
who gave the previous bond shall not, in consequence of it, come to any loss or dam-
age. * Slope, decUvity.
198 Rutherford's letters.
men of Gallic's noughty ' faith. It is counted wisdom, in the most,
not to countenance a confined minister ! but I find Christ neither
strange nor unkind ; for I have found many faces smile upon me
since I came hither.
I am heavy and sad, considering what is betwixt the Lord and
my soul,Avliich none seeth but he. I find men have mistaken me ;
it would be no art (as I now see) to spin small,- and make hypoc-
risy seem a goodly web, and go through the market as a saint
among men, and yet steal quietly to Hell, without observation ; so
easy is it to deceive men. I have disputed whether or no I ever
knew anything of Christianity, save the letters of that name.
Men see but as men, and they call ten twenty, and twenty a hun-
dred ; but, oh ! to be approved of God in the heart and in sincer-
ity, is not an ordinary mercy. My neglects while I had a pulpit,
and other things whereof I am ashamed to speak, meet me now,
so as God maketh an honest cross my daily sorrow ; and, for fear
of scandal and stumbling, I must hide this day of the law's plead-
ing : I know not if this court, kept within my soul, be fenced ^ in
Christ's name. If certainty of salvation were to be bought, God
knoweth that if I had ten earths, I would not prig^ with God.
Like a fool, I believed, under sufferings for Christ, that I myself
should keep the key of Christ's treasures, and take out comforts
when I listed, and eat, and be fat ; but I see now that a sufferer
for Christ shall be made to know himself, and shall be holden at
the door, as well as another poor sinner : and will be fain to eat
with the bairns and take the by-board,' and glad to do so. My
blessing on the cross of Christ, that hath made me to see this.
Oh, if^ we could take pains for the Kingdom of Heaven ! But we
sit down upon some ordinary marks of God's children, thinking we
have as much as will separate us from a reprobate, and thereupon
we take the play, and cry "Holiday;" and thus the Devil casteth
water on our fire, and blunteth our zeal and care. But I see that
Heaven is not at the next door ; and I see that, howbeit my chal-
lenges'^ be many, I suffer for Christ and dare hazard my salvation
upon it ; for sometimes my Lord cometh with a fair hour, and, oh !
but his love is sweet, delightful, and comfortable ! Half a kiss is
sweet : but our doting love will not be content with a right to
Christ, unless we get possession ; like the man who will not be
content with rights^ to bought land, except he get also the ridges
and acres laid upon his back, to carry home with him. However
it be, Christ is wise ; and we are fools to be browden^ and fond of
a pawn in the loof '" of our hand : living on trust by faith may well
content us. Madam, I know that your Ladyship knoweth this,
and that made me bold to write of it, that others might reap some-
what by my bonds for the truth ; for I would desire, and aim at
1 Havinw nothing in it. _ ^ Fine.
3 To fence, to open a court by proclaiming the principles on which it is constituted.
* Higgle, challer. 5 Side-table. « Oh, that.
' Self- accusations. ^ Title-deeds.
9 Unreasonably, and somewhat childishly intent upon a thing.
1" The palm of the hand.
Rutherford's letters. 199
this, to have my Lord well-spoken of and honored, howbeit he
should make nothing- of me but a bridge over a water.
Thus recommending your Ladyship, your son and children, to
His grace, vvho hath honored you with a name and room among
the living in Jerusalem ; and wishing grace to be with your Lady-
ship, I rest,
Your Ladyship's in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXXIL
TO MR. DAVID DICKSON.
Reverend, and Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be unto you — I find that great men, especially old friends, scaur '■
to speak for me ; but my kingly and royal Master biddeth me to
try his moyen^ to the uttermost, and I shall find a friend at hand.
I still depend upon Him ; His court is as before ; the prisoner is
welcome to Him ; the black, crabbed tree of my Lord's cross hath
made Christ and mj'^ soul very entire.; ^ He is my song in the
night. I am often laid in the dust with challenges,'* and appre-
hensions of His anger, and then, if a mountain of iron were laid
upon me, I cannot be heavier ; and with much wrestling I win^
into the king's house-of-wine, and then, for the most part, my life
is joy, and such joy through his comforts, as I have been afraid
lest I should shame myself and cry out, for I can scarce bear what
I get. Christ giveth me a measure heaped up, pressed down, and
running over ; and, believe it, his love paineth more than prison
and banishment. I cannot get the way of Christ's love. Had I
known what He was keeping for me, T should never have been so
faint-hearted. In my heaviest times, when all is lost, the memory
of His love maketh me think Christ's glooms' are but for the
fashion.'' I seek no more than a vent to my wine ; I am smoth-
ered and ready to burst for want of vent. Think not much of
persecution. It is before you ; but it is not as men conceive of it;
my sugared cross forceth me to say this to you, ye shall have
waled 8 meat — the sick bairn is ofttimes the spilled ° bairn — ye shall
command all the house. I hope that ye help a tired prisoner to
praise and pray. Had I but the annual of annual '" to give to my
Lord Jesus, it would ease my pain. But, alas ! I have nothing to
pay, he will get nothing of poor me ; but I am wo" that I have
not room enough in my heart for such a stranger. I am not cast
down to go farther north. I have good cause to work for my Mas-
I Boggle. 2 Interest.
3 That is, Iiath united them in most intimate acquaintance and friendship.
* Self-accusations. s Get. ^ Frowns.
7 For the customary appearance. 8 Carefully selected.
9 Spoiled. 1° Q,uit-rent of quit-rent, that is, the smallest sum.
" Grieved.
200 Rutherford's letters.
ter, for I am well-paid before-hand ; I am not behind, howbeit 1
should get one smile more, till my feet be up within the King-'s
dining-hall.
I have gone through yours upon the Covenant ; it hath edified
my soul, and refreshed a hungry man. I judge it sharp, sweet,
quick, and profound. Take me at my word, 1 fear that it get no
lodging in Scotland.
The brethren of Ireland write not to me — chide with them for
that. I am sure that I may give you and them a commission,
(and I will abide by it,) tliat you tell my Beloved that I am sick
of love. I hope in God to leave some of my rust and superfluities
in Aberdeen. I cannot get a house in this town wherein to leave
drink-silver' in my Master's name, save one only : there is no sale
for Christ in the north ; he is like to lye long on my hand, ere any
accept him.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXXin.
TO MR. MATTHEW MO WAT.
Reverend, and Dear Brother, — I am a very far mistaken
man. If others knew how poor my stock was, they would not
think upon the like of me but with compassion ; for I am as one
kept under a strict tutor ; I would have more than my tutor al-
loweth me, but it is good that a bairn's wit is not the rule which
regulateth my Lord Jesus. Let him give what he will, it shall
aye be above merit, and my ability to gain therewith. I would
not wish a better stock, wliill Heaven be my stock, than to live
upon credit at Christ's hands, daily borrowing. Surely, running--
over love, that vast, huge, boundless love of Christ, (that there is
telling in for man and angels,) is the only thing I most fain would
be in hands with. He knoweth that I have little but the love of
that love ; and that I shall be happy, suppose I never get another
heaven, but only an eternal, lasting feast of that love. But sup-
pose my wishes were poor, he is not poor ; Christ, all the seasons
of the year, is dropping sweetness. If I had vessels, I might fill
them, but my old, riven, and running-out dish, even when I am
at the well, can bring little away. Nothing but glory will make
tiglit and fast our leaking and rifty*^ vessels. Alas! I have
skailed^ more of Christ's grace, love, faitii, humility, and godly
sorrow than I have brought with me. How little of the sea can
a child carry in his hand ! as little dow i I take way of my great
Sea, my boundless and running-over Christ Jesus.
' Drink money. Rutherford means that he could not find any house, save only one,
in which he could leave, on his departure Irom it, any expression or token of his regard
for Christ. 2 Full of rifts or rents. 2 Spilled, scattered. ■» Am able to.
- ' Rutherford's letters. 201
I have not lighted upon the right gate' of putting Christ to the
bank, and malting myself rich with him : my misguiding and
childish traflicking with that matchless Pearl, tliat Heaven's Jewel,
the Jewel of the Fatlier's dehghts, hath put me to a great loss.
Ob, that he would take a loan of me, and my stock, and put his
name in all my bonds, and serve himself heir to the poor mean
portion Avhicii I have, and be accountable for the talent himself!
Gladly would I put Christ into my room, to guide all; and let me
be but a servant to run errands, and act by his direction — let me
be his interdicted heir. Lord Jesus work upon my minority, and
let him win a pupil's blessing. Oh, how would I rejoice to have
this work of my salvation legally fastened upon Christ ! A back-
bond^ of my Lord Jesus that it should be forthcoming^ to the or-
phan, would be my happiness : dependency on Christ weve my
surest way ; if Christ were my foundation I were sure enough. I
thought the guiding of grace had been no art ; ^ I thought it would
come of will ;^ but I would spill « my own heaven yet, if I bad not
burdened Christ with all. I but lend my bare name to the sweet
covenant ; Christ, behind and before, and on either side, maketb
all sure. God will not take an Arminian cautioner.'^ Free-will, .
a weather-cock, turning at a serpent's tongue, a tutor that cowped^
our father, Adam, unto us ; and brought down the house, and sold
the land ; and sent the father, the mother, and all the bairns
through the earth, to beg their bread : nature in the Gospel, hath
but cracked a credit. Oh, well to my poor soul for evermore, that
my Lord called grace to the council, and put Christ Jesus with
free merits, and the blood of God foremost in the chase, to draw
sinners after a Ransomer ! Oh, what a sweet block ° was it, by
way of buying and selling, to give, and tell down a ransom for
grace and glory to dyvours ! '" Oh, would to my Lord that I could
cause paper and ink to speak the worth and excellency, the high
and loud praises of a Brother-ransomer ! The Ransomer needeth
not my report ; but oh, if he would take it, and make use of it !
I should be happy, if I had an errand to this world, but for some
few years, to spread proclamations and outcries, and love-letters,
of the highness, the highness for evermore, the glory, the glory for
evermore, of the Ransomer, whose clothes were wet and dyed in
blood I albeit, after I had done that, my soul and body should go
back to the mother. Nothing that their Creator brought them
once out from, as from their I3eginning. But why sliould I pine
away, and pain myself with wishes ; and not believe rather,
that Christ will hire such an outcast as I am, a masterless body,'*
put out of the house by the sons of my mother, and give me em-
1 Way, manner.
2 A bond, given by one who tias received a previous bond, enjrairing that the
person who gave the previous bond shall not, in consequence of it, come to any loss
or damage.
3 Producible. ^ That is, required no skill. s Spontaneously.
6 Spoil, ruin. 7 Surety. 8 Overturned, upset,
9 Plan, or scheme of a bargain. Jo Bankrupts.
'1 A servant whom no master will hire.
202 Rutherford's letters.
ployment and a calling, one way or other, to set out Christ and
his wares to country buyers, and purpose Christ unto, and press
him upon some poor souls, that fainer than their life would receive
hira ? •
You complain heavilyof your short-coming in practice, and ven-
turing on suffering for Christ: you have many marrows.' For
the first, I would not put you off a sense of wretchedness. Hold
on ! Christ never yet slew a sighing, groaning child : more of ""
that would make you won goods, and a meet prey for Christ.
Alas ! I have too little of it, for venturing on suffering. I had not
so much free gear,^ when I came to Christ's camp as to buy a
sword — a wonder that Christ should not laugh at such a soldier.
I am no better yet ; but faith liveth and spendeth upon our Cap-
tain's charges, who is able to pay for all: we need not pity him,
he is rich enough. Ye desire me also not to mistake Christ under
a mask. I bless you, and thank God for it : but alas ! masked,
or bare-faced, kissing or glooming,^ I mistake him : yea, I mistake
hira farthest when the mask is off; for then I play me with his
sweetness. I am like a child, that hath a gilded book, that play-
eth with the ribbons, and the gilding, and the' picture on the first
page, but readeth not the contents of it. Certainly if my desires
to my Well-beloved were fulfilled, I could provoke devils, and
crosses, and the world, and temptations to the field ; but, oh ! my
poor weakness maketh me lye behind the bush and hide me.
Remember my service and my blessing to my Lord. I am
mindful of him as I am able. Desire him from a prisoner, to
come and visit my good Master, and feel but the smell of his love.
It setteth^ him well, howbeit he be young, to make Christ his gar-
land. I could not wish him in a better case, than in a fever of
love-sickness for Christ.
Remember my bonds. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTEJl CXXIV.
TO WILLIAM HALLIDAY.
Loving Friend,^ — I received your letter. I wish that ye take
pains for salvation. Mistaken grace, and somewhat like conver-
sion which is not conversion, is the saddest and most doleful thing
in the world. Make sure of salvation, and lay the foundation sure,
for many are beguiled. Put a low price upon the world's clay ;
put a high price upon Christ. Temptations will come, but if they
be not made welcome by you, ye have the best of it. Be jealous
over yourself and your own heart, and keep touches " with God.
1 Equals, companions. 2 Money. 3 Frowning,
* Becomes. 5 Keep faith.
Rutherford's letters. 203
Let him not have a faint and feeble soldier of you. Fear not to
back Christ, for he will conquer and overcome. Let no man scaur *
at Christ, for I have no quarrels at his cross ; he and his cross are
two good guests, and worth the lodging. Men wDuld fain have
Christ good-cheap,^ but the market will not come down. Acquaint
yourself with prayer. Make Christ your Captain and your armor.
Make conscience of sinning when no eye seeth you. Grace be
with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXXV.
TO A GENTLEWOMAN, AFTER THE DEATH OF HER HUSBAND.
Dear, and Loving Sister,— I know that ye are minding your
sweet country, and not taking your inn (the place of your banish-
ment) for your home. This life is not worthy to be the thatch or
outer wall of the paradise of your Lord Jesus, that he did sweat
for to you, and that he keepeth for you. Short, and silly, and
sand-blind were our hope, if it could not look over the water to
our best heritage, and if it stayed only at home about the doors
of our clay house.
I marvel not, my dear sister, that ye complain that ye come
short of your old wrestlings, which ye had for a blessing, and that
now ye find it not so. Bairns are but hired to learn their lesson,
when they first go to school: and it is enough that these who run
a race see the gold only at the starting-place ; and possibly they
see little more of it, or nothing at all till they win^ to the rinks-
end,^ and get the gold in the loof'^ of their hand. Our Lord maketh
delicates and dainties of his sweet presence and love-visits to his
own ; but Christ's love, under a veil, is love. If ye get Christ,
howbeit not the sweet and pleasant way ye would have him, it is
enough ; for the Well-beloved cometh not our way ; he must wale^
his own gate'' himself For worldly things, seeing they are mead-
ows and fair flowers in your way to Heaven, a smell in the by-
going^ is sufficient. He that would reckon and tell all the stones
in his way, in a journey of three or four hundred miles, and write
up in his count-book ^ all the herbs and the flowers growing in his
way, might come short of his journey. You cannot stay, in your
inch of time, to lose your day, (seeing that you are in haste ; and
the night, and your afternoon will not bide '" you,) in setting your
lieart on this vain world. It were your wisdom to read your ac-
count-book, and to have in readiness your business, against the
' Boggle.
2 Gratuitously. Rutherford means without any trials or tribulations.
3 Get. * End of the course. s The palm.
6 Choose, select. ''' Way. *> Passing.
9 That is, his diary or journal. i" Wait lor.
204 Rutherford's letters.
time you come to death's water-side. I know tliat your lodging
is taken ; your forerunner, Christ, hath not forgotten that ; and,
therefore, you must set yourself to your " one thing." which you
cannot well vv^nt.
In that our Lord took your husband to himself, I know it was
that he might make room for himself. He cutteth off your love
to the creature, that ye might learn that God only is the right
owner of your love, sorrow, loss, sadness, death, or the worst things
that are, except sin. But Christ knoweth well what to make of
them, and can put his own in the cross's common,' that we shall
be obHged to affliction, and thank God, who taught us to make our
acquaintance with such a rough companion, who can hale us to
Christ. You must learn to make your evils your great good ; and
to spin comforts, peace, joy, communion with Christ, out of your
troi^iles, that are Christ's wooers, sent to speak for'' you to him-
self. It is easy to get good words, and a comfortable message
from our Lord, even from such rough Serjeants, as divers tempta-
tions. Thanks to God for crosses ! When we count and reckon
our losses in seeking God, we find that godliness is great gain.
Great partners of a shipful of gold are glad to see the ship come to
the harbor; — surely we and our Lord Jesus together, have a ship-
ful of gold coming home, and our gold is in that ship. Some are
so in love, or rather in lust, with this life, that they sell their part
of the sliip for a little thing. I would counsel you to buy hope,
but sell it not, and give not away your crosses for nothing ; the
inside of Christ's cross is white and joyful, and the far-end^ of the
black cross is a fair and glorious heaven of ease : and seeing
Christ hath fastened Heaven to the far-end ^ of the cross, and he
will not loose the knot himself, and none else can, (for when Christ
casteth^ a knot, all the world cannot loose it :) let us then count
it exceeding joy, when we fall into divers temptations.
Thus recommending you to the tender mercy, and grace of our
Lord, I rest,
Your loving brother, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXXVL
TO JOHN GORDON OF CARDONESS, YOUNGER.
Honored, and Dear Brother, — I wrote of late to you. Mul-
titudes of letters burden me now. I am refreshed with your letter.
I exhort you in the bowels of Christ, set to work for your soul,
and let these bear weight with you, and ponder them seriously :
1st, Weeping and gnashing of teeth in utter darkness or Heaven's
joy. 2ndly, Think what ye would give for an hour, when ye
J That is. Christ can so place himself under, or connect himself with, the cross, as'
that we shall be obliged or indebted to the cross for our being brought to him.
2 To bespeak. 3 Farthest end. * Tieth.
Rutherford's letters. 205
shall lye like dead, cold, blackened clay. 3idly, There is sand in
your glass yet, and your sun is not gone down. 4thiy, Consider
what joy and j)eace are in Christ's service. 5thly, Tliink what
advantage it will be, to have angels, the world, life and death,
crosses, yea, and devils, all for you, as the King's Serjeants and
servants, to do your business. 6thly, To have mercy on your
seed, and a blessing on your house. 7thly, To have true honor,
and a name on earth that casteth a sweet smell. Sthly, How ye
will rejoice when Christ layeth down your head under his chin,
and betwixt his breasts, and drieth your face, and welcometh you
to glory and happiness. Othly, Imagine what pain and torture is
a guilty conscience ; what slavery to carry the Devil's dishonest'
loads. lOthly, Sin's joys are but night-dreams, thoughts, vapors,
imaginations, and shadows, llthly. Wliat dignity it is to be a
son of God. 12thly, Dominion and mastery over temptations,"
over the world and sin. ISthl}^, That your enemies should be the
tail and you the head.
For your bairns, now at rest, I speak to you and your wife, (and
cause her to read this.) 1st, I am a witness for Barbara's glory in
Heaven. 2ndl3^, For the rest, I write it under my hand, there are
days coming on Scotland, when barren wombs, and dry breasts,
and childless parents shall be pronounced blessed — they are then,
in the lee of the harbor, ere the storm come on. 3rdly, They are
not lost to you, that are laid up in Christ's treasury in Heaven.
4thly, At the Resurrection, ye shall meet with them ; thither they
are sent before, but not sent away. 5thly, Your Lord loveth you,
who is homely ' to take and give, borrow and lend.^ Gthly, Let
not bairns be your idols ; for God will be jealous,and take away the
idol, because he is greedy of your love wholly.
I bless you, your wife and children. Grace for evermore be
with you.'
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXXVn.
TO JOHN GORDON OF CARDONESS, ELDER.
Honorable, and Dearest in the Lord,^ — Your letter hath
refreshed my soul. My joy is fulfilled, if Christ and ye be fast
together. Ye are my joy and crown. Ye know that I have rec-
ommended his love to you. I defy the world, Satan, and sin.
His love hath neither brim, nor bottom in it. My dearest in
Christ, I write my soul's desire to you. Heaven is not at the next
door. I find Christianity to be a hard task : set to it in your
evening. We would all keep both Ciirist and our right eye, our
1 Affable, condescending.
* To borrow or lend, to be on the most intimate and familiar terms.
206 Rutherford's letters.
rio-ht hand and foot ; but it will not do with us. I beseech you,
by the mercies of God, and your compearance ^ before Christ, look
Christ's account-book and your own together, and collate them.
Give the remnant of your time to your soul. This great idol-god,
the world, will be lying in white ashes, on the day of your com-
pearance ; ' and why should night-dreams, and day-shadows, and
water-froth, and May-flowers run away with your heart? When
we win to^ the water-side, and black death's river-brink, and put
our foot into the boat, we shall laugh at our folly. Sir, I recom-
mend unto you the thoughts of death, and how ye would wish
your soul to be, when ye shall lye cold, blue, ill-smelling clay.
For any hireling to be intruded, I, being the King's prisoner,
cannot say much ; but as God's minister, I desire you to read Acts
i. 15, 16, to the end, and Acts vi. 2, 3, 4, 5, and ye shaU find that
God's people should have a voice in choosing church-rulers and
teachers. I shall be sorry, if willingly ye shall give way to his
unlawful intrusion upon my labors. The only wise God direct
you.
God's grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXXVIII.
TO THE LADY FORRET.
Worthy Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you —
I long to hear from you. I hear Christ hath been that' kind as
to visit you with sickness, and to bring you to the door of the
grave : but ye found the door shut, blessed be his glorious name !
whill^ ye be riper for eternity. He will have more service of
you: and, therefore, he seeketh of you, that henceforth ye be hon-
est to your new Husband, the Son of God. We have all idol-love,
and are whorishly inclined to love other things beside our Lord,
and, therefore, our Lord hunteth for our love moe ways than one
or two. Oh that Christ had his own of us ! I know he will not
Avant you, and that is a sweet wilfulness in his love ; and ye have
as good cause, on the other part, to be headstrong and peremptory
in your love to Christ, and not to part, nor divide your love be-
twixt him and the world — if it were more, it is little enough, yea,
too little for Christ.
I am now, every way, in good terms with Christ. He hath set
a banished prisoner as a seal on his heart, and as a bracelet on
his arm: that crabbed and black tree of the cross laugheth upon
me now ; the alarming noise of the cross is worse than itself I
love Christ's glooms ^ better than the world's worm-eaten joys.
Oh, if« all the kingdom were as I am, except these bonds ! My
1 Appearance in obedience to legal citation. ' Reach.
3 So. 4 Until. 5 Frowns. « Oh, that.
:• Rutherford's letters. 207
loss is gain ; my sadness joyful ; my bonds, liberty ; my tears com-
fortable. This world is not worth a drink of cold water. Oh, but
Christ's love castetli a great heat ! Hell, and all the salt sea, and
the rivers of the earth, cannot quench it.
I remember you to God ; ye have the prayers of a prisoner of
Christ, Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 9, 1637.
LETTER CXXIX.
for MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Loving, and Dear Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you, — Your letter hath refreshed my soul. You shall not have
my advice to make haste to go out of that town ; for if you re-
move out of Kirkcudbright, they will easily undo all. You are at
God's work, and in his way there : be strong in the Lord ; the
Devil is weaker than you are, because stronger is He that is in
3^ou than he that is in the world. Your care of, and love showed
towards me, now a prisoner of Christ, is laid up for you in Heaven,
and you shall know, that it is come up in remembrance before
God.
Pray, pray for my desolate flock, and give them your counsel,
when you meet with any of them. It shall be my grief to hear
that a wolf enter in upon my labors ; but if the Lord permit it, I
must be silent. My sky shall clear, for Christ layeth my head in
his bosom, and admitteth me to lean there. I never knew before
what his love was in such a measure. If he leave me, he leaveth
me in pain, and sick of love ; and yet my sickness is my life and
health. I have a fire within me ; I defy all the devils in Hell,
and all the prelates in Scotland, to cast water on it.
I rejoice at your courage and faith. Pray still as if I were on
my journey to come and be your pastor. What iron-gates or bars
are able to stand it out against Christ ? for when he bloweth, they
open to him.
I remember your husband. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S, R.
Aberdeen, March 11, 1637.
LETTER CXXX.
TO JOHN CARSEN,
My Well-beloved, and Dear Friend, — Every one seeketh
not God ; and far fewer find him, because they seek amiss. He
208 Rutherford's letters.
is to be sovight for, above all things, if men would find what they
seek. liCt feathers and shadows alone to children, and go seek
your Well-beloved. Your only errand to the world, is to woo
Christ : therefore, put other lovers from about his hous^e, and let
Christ have all your love, without minching ^ or dividing it — it is
little enough, if there Avere more of it. The serving of the world
and sin hath but a base reward ; and smoke instead of pleasures,
and but a night-dream for true ease to the soul. Go where ye
will, your soul shall not sleep sound but in Christ's bosom. Come
in to him, and lie down, and rest you on the slain Son of God, and
inquire for him. I sought him, and now, a fig for all the worm-
eaten pleasures, and moth-eaten glory out of Heaven, since I have
found him, and in him all I can want or wish ! He hath made
me a king over the world. Princes cannot overcome me. Christ
hath given me the marriage-kiss, and he liath my marriage-love :
Ave have made up a full bargain, that shall not go back on either
side. Oh, iP ye, and all in that country, knew what sweet terms
of mercy are betwixt him and me !
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 11, 1637.
LETTER CXXXL
TO MY LADY BOYD.
Madam, — I would have written to your Ladyship ere now, but
people's believing there is in me that which I know there is not
hath put me out of love with writing to any ; for it 'is easy to put
religion to a market and public fair, but alas ! it is not so soon
made eye-sweet^ for Christ.
My Lord seeth me a tired man far behind. I have gotten much
love from Christ, but I give him little or none again. My white
side Cometh out on paper to men ; but at home and within, I find
much black work, and great cause of a low sail, and of little boast-
ing ; and yet howbeit I see challenges^ to be true, the manner of
the Tempter's pressing of them is unhonest, and, in my thoughts,
knavish-like.^ My peace is, that Christ may find outing' and sale
of his Avares in the like of me, I mean, for saving grace.
I Avish all professors to fall in love with grace. All oar songs
should be of his free grace. We are but too lazy and careless in
seeking of it ; it is all our riches Ave have here, and glory in the
bud. I Avish that I could set out free grace. I Avas the Law's
man, and under the LaAV, and under a curse ; but grace brought
me from under that hard lord, and I rejoice that I am grace's free-
holder. I pay tribute to none for Heaven, seeing my land and
I Mincing. 2 oh, that. 3 Pleasant to the eye.
* AccusatioBS. 5 Not feir.
6 Having the appearance of being knavish. 7 Display.
Rutherford's letters. 209
heritage holdeth of Christ, my new King. Infinite wisdom hath
devised tliis excellent way of free-holding for sinners. It is a bet-
ter way to heaven than the old way that was in Adam's days.
It hath this fair advantage, that no man's emptiness and want
layeth an inhibition upon Christ, or hindereth his salvation ; (and
that is far best for me,) but our new Landlord putteth the names
of dyvours, 1 and Adam's forlorn heirs, and beggars, and the
crooked^ and blind, in the free charters. Heaven, and angels
may wonder that we have got such a gate^ of sin and Hell, Such
a back-entry out of Hell, as Christ made, and brought out the cap-
tives b}^, is more than my poor shallow thoughts can comprehend.
I would think sufferings glory, (and I am sometimes not far from
it,) if my Lord would give me a new alms of free grace.
I hear that the prelates are intending banishment for me ; but
for more grace, and no other hire, I would make it welcome. The
bits of this clay-house, the earth, and the other side of the sea, are
my Father's. If my sweet Lord Jesus would bud^ my sufferings
with a new measure of grace, I were a rich man ; but I have not
now, of a long time, found such high spring-tides as formerly.
The sea is out, and the wind of his Spirit calm ; and I cannot
buy a wind, or, by requesting the sea, cause it to flow again ;
only, I v/ait on, upon the banks and shore-side, till the Lord send
a full sea, that with up-sails I may lift up Christ. Yet sorrow for
his absence is sweet ; and sighs, with " Sav/ ye Him whom my
soul loveth ?" have their own delights. Oh, that I may gather
hunger against his long-looked-for return ! Well were my soul,
if Christ were the element, mine own element, and that I loved
and breathed in him, and if I could not live without him. I allow
not laughter upon myself, when he is away ; yet he never leaveth
the house, but he leaveth drink-money behind him, and a pawn
that he will return. Wo, wo to me, if he should go away, and
take all his flitting ^ with him ! Even to dream of him is sweet.
To build a house of pining wishes for his return, to spin out a web
of sorrow, and care, and languishing, and sighs, either dry or wet,
as they may be, because he hath no leisure, (if I may speak so,)
to make a visit, or to see a poor friend, sweeteneth and refresheth
the thoughts of the heart. A misty dew will stand for rain, and
do some good, and keep some greenness in the herbs, till our
Lord's clouds rue upon the earth, and send down a watering of
rain. Truly I think Christ's misty dew a welcome message from
heaven, till my Lord's rain fall.
Wo, wo is me for the Lord's vineyard in Scotland. Howbeit the
Father of the house embrace a child, and feed him, and kiss him ;
yet it is sorrow and sadness to the children, that our poor Mother
hath gotten her leave,* and that our Father hath given up house.
It is an unheartsome'' thing, to see our Father and Mother agree
so ill ; yet the bastards, if they be fed, care not. O Lord, cast not
1 Bankrupts. 2 Halt. 3 Way. ■» Bribe.
5 Goods which may be removed from one residence to another.
6 Discharge. '. Unseemly and melancholy.
210 Rutherford's letters.
water on Scotland's smoaking coal. It is a strange gate the saints
go to Heaven. Our enemies often eat ' and drink us, and we go
to Heaven through their bellies and stomachs, and they vomit the
church of God, undigested among their hands : and even while
we are shut up in prisons by them, we advance in our journey.
Remember my service to my Lord your kind son, who was kind
to me in my bonds, and was not ashamed to own me. I would be
glad that Christ got the morning-service of his life, now in his
young years ; it would suit him well to give Christ his young and
green love. Christ's stamp and seal would go far down in a young
soul, if he would receive the thrust of Christ's stamp. I would
desire him to make search for Christ ; for nobles now are but dry
friends to Christ.
The grace of God our Father, and the good-will of Him who
dwelt in the bush, be with your Ladyship.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXXH.
TO THE EARL OF CASSILLIS.
My very Noble, and Honorable Lord, — I make bold, (out
of the honorable and Christian report I hear of your Lordship,
having no other thing to say, but that which concerneth the
honorable cause which the Lord hath enabled your Lordship to
profess,) to write this, that it is your Lordship's crown, your glory,
and your honor, to set your shoulder under the Lord's glory, now
falling to the ground, and to back Christ now, when so many think
it wisdom to let him fend for^ himself. The shields of the earth
ever did, and do still believe that Christ is a cumbersome neighbor,
and that it is a pain to hold up his yeas and nays. They fear
that he take their chariots, and their crowns, and their honor from
them ; but my Lord standeth in need of none of them all. But it
is your glory to own Christ and his buried truth ; for, let men say
what they please, the plea with Zion's enemies, in this day of
Jacob's troulile, is. If Christ should be King, and no mouth speak
laws but his? It concerneth the apple of Christ's eye, and his
royal privileges, what is now debated ; and Christ's kingly honor
is come to yea and nay. But let me be pardoned, my dear, and
noble Lord, when I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the
comfort of the Spirit, by the wounds of your dear Saviour, by your
compearance 3 before the Judge of quick and dead, to stand for
Christ, and to back him. Oh, if the nobles had done their part,
and been zealous for the Lord ! it had not been as it is now ; but
men think it wisdom to stand beside Christ till his head be broken,
and sing dumb.^ There is a time coming when Christ will have
1 Ps. xiv. 4. 2 Make a shift for.
3 Appearance in a court of law. * Be silent.
Rutherford's letters. 211
a thick ' court, and he will be the glory of Scotland ; and he will
make a diadem, a garland, a seal upon his heart, and a ring upon
his finger, of those who have avouched him before this faithless
generation : — howbeit, ere that come, wrath from the Lord is
ordained for this land.
My Lord, I have cause to write this to your Lordship, for I dare
not conceal his kindness to the soul of an afflicted, exiled prisoner.
Who hath more cause to boast in the Lord than such a sinner as
I, who am feasted with the consolations of Christ, and have no
pain in my sufferings, but the pain of soul-sickness of love for
Christ, and sorrow that I cannot help to sound aloud the praises
of Him who hath heard the sighing of the prisoner, and is content
to lay the head of his oppressed servant in his bosom, under his
chin, and let him feel the smell of his garments ? It behooved me
to write this, that your Lordship might know that Christ is as good
as he is called ; and to testify to your Lordship that the cause,
which your Lordship now professeth before the faithless world, is
Christ's, and that your Lordship shall have no shame of it.
Grace be with you.
Your Lordship's obliged servant, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CXXXIIL
TO ROBERT GORDON, BAILLIE OP AYR.
Worthy Sir,— Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I long to
hear from you on paper. Remember your Chiefs ^ speeches on his
death-bed. I pray you, sir, sell all, and buy the pearl : time will
cut you from this world's glory. Look what will do you good,
when your glass shall be run out, and let Christ's love bear most
court in your soul, and that court will bear down the love of other
things. Christ seeketh your help in your place, give him your
hand. Who hath more cause to encourage others to own Clirist
than I have ? for he hath made me sick of love, and left me in
pain to wrestle with his love, and love is like to fall aswoon^
through his absence : — I mean not that he deserteth me, or that I
am ebb^ of comforts ; but this is an unco^ pain. Oh that I had a
heart and a love to render to him back again ! Oh, if^ principali-
ties and powers, thrones and dominions, and all the world would
help me to praise ! Praise him in my behalf.
Remember my love to your wife. I thank you most kindly for
your love to my brother. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
1 Thronged, crowded. 2 Kenmure. 3 into a swoon.
* Shallow. 5 Excessive. 6 Oh, that.
212 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CXXXIV.
TO JOHN KENNEDY, BAILLIE OP AYR.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — Your not writing to me
cannot bind me up from remembering you now and then, that at
least ye may be a witness and a third man to behold on paper what
is betwixt Christ and me. I was in his eyes hke a young orphan,
wanting known parents, casten out in the open fields : either Christ
behooved to take me up, and to bring me home to his house and
fire-side, else I had died in the fields ; and now I am homely ' with
Christ's love, so that I think the house mine own, and the Master
of the house mine also. Christ inquired not, when he began to
love me, whether I was fair, or black, or sun-burnt ! — love taketh
what it may have. He loved me before this time, I know ; but
now I have the flower of his love : his love is come to a fair bloom, ^
like a young rose opened up out of the green leaves, and it casteth
a strong and fragrant smell. I want nothing but ways of expres-
sing Christ's love. A full vessel would have a vent. Oh, if^ I
could smoke out, and cast out coals, to make a fire in many breasts
of this land ! Oh ! it is a pity that there were not many impris-
oned for Christ, were it for no other purpose than to whte books
and love-songs of the love of Christ.
This love would keep all created tongues of men and angels in
exercise, and busy night and day, to speak of it. Alas ! I can
speak nothing of it, but wonder at three things in his love : — First,
freedom. Oh, that lumps of sin should get such love for nothing !
Secondly, The sweetness of his love. I give over either to speak
or write of it ; but those that feel it, may better bear witness what
it is : but it is so sweet, that, next to Christ himself, nothing can
match it. Nay, I think that a soul could live eternally blessed
only on Christ's love, and feed upon no other thing: yea, when
Christ in love giveth a blow, it doeth a soul good ; and it is a kind
of comfort and joy to it, to get a cuff with the lovely, sweet, and
soft hand of Jesus. And, thirdly. What power and strength are
in his love ! 1 am persuaded it can climb a steep hill, with hell
upon its back ; and swim through water and not drown ; and sing
in the fire, and find no pain ; and triumph in losses, prisons, sor-
rows, exile, disgrace, and laugh and rejoice in death. Oh, for a
year's lease of the sense of his love, without a cloud, to try what
Christ is ! Oh, for the coming of the Bridegroom ! Oh, when
shall I see the Bridegroom and the bride meet in the clouds, and
kiss each other ! Oh, when will we get our day, and our heart's-
fiU of that love ! Oh, if ^ it were lawful to complain of the famine
of that love, and want of the immediate vision of God ! O time,
time ! how dost thou torment the souls of those that would be
swallowed up of Christ's love, because thou movest so slowly ! Oh,
I At home. 2 Blossom. 3 Oh, that.
Rutherford's letters. 213
if ' he would pity a poor prisoner, and blow love upon me, and
give a prisoner a taste or draught of that sweetness, (which is
glory as it were begun,) to be a confirmation,, that Christ and I
shall have our fill of each other forever ! Come hither, O Love
of Christ, that I may once kiss thee before I die ! What would I
not give to have time, that lyeth betwixt Christ and me, taken out
of the way, that we might once meet ? I cannot think but that
at the first sight I shall see of that most lovely and fairest face,
love will come out of his two eyes, and fill me with astonishment.
I would but desire to stand at the outer side of the gates of the
new Jerusalem, and look through a hole of the door, and see
Christ's face. A borrowed vision in this life would be my borrow-
ed and begun heaven, whill the long, long-looked-for day dawn.
It is not for nothing that it is said, (Col. i. 27,) " Christ in you the
hope of glory." I will be content of no pawn of Heaven but
Christ himself; for Christ, possessed by faith here, is young heav-
en and glory in the bud. If I had that pawn I would bide horn-
ing^ and Hell both, ere I give it again. AH that we have here, is
scarce the picture of glory. Should not we young bairns long and
look for the expiring of our minority ? It were good to be daily
begging propines ^ and love-gifts, and the bridegroom's favors ;
and, if we can do no more, to seek crumbs, and hungry dinners
of Clirist's love, to keep the taste of Heaven in our mouth, whill
supper-time. I know it is far after noon, and nigh the marriage-
supper of the Lamb : — the table is covered already. O well-
beloved, run, run fast ! O fair day, when wilt thou dawn ! O
'shadows, flee away ! I think hope and love woven through other *
make our absence from Christ spiritual torment. It is a pain to
wait on, but hope that maketh not ashamed swalloweth up that
pain. It is not unkindness that keepeth Christ and us so long
asunder. What can I say to Christ's love? I think more than I
can say. To consider, that when my Lord Jesus may take the
air, (if I may so speak,) and go abroad, yet he will be confined
and keep the prison with me ! But in all this sweet communion
with him, what am I to be thanked for? I am but a sufferer.
Whether I will or not, he will be kind to me — as if he had defied
my guiltiness to make him unkind, he so beareth his love in on
me. Here I die with wondering, that justice hindereth not love ;
for there are none in Hell, nor out of Hell, more unworthy of
Christ's love. Shame may confound and scaur ^ me once to hold
up my black mouth to receive one of Christ's undeserved kisses.
If my inner-side were turned out, and all men saw my vileness,
1 Oh, that.
2 A letter issued from his majesty's signet, and directed to a messenger, who is re-
quired to charge a debtor to pay the debt for which he is prosecuted under pain of
rebeUion. This legal process is so called because if the debtor disobey the charge, the
messenger, after having proceeded to the market-cross of the head-burgh of the shire
where the debtor dwells, there before witnesses cries, " Oyes, oyes, oyes ;" then reads
the letters, and afterwards, gives three blasts with a horn, by which it is understood
that the debtor is denounced as a rebel, and outlawed for disobedience to the king's
authority.
3 Presents. * Promiscuously. 5 Frighten,
214 Rutherford's letters.
they would say to me, " It is a shame for thee to stand still, whill
Christ kiss thee and embrace thee." It would seem to become me
rather to run away from his love, as ashamed at my own un worth-
iness : nay, I may think shame ^ to take heaven, who have so
highly provoked my Lord Jesus ; but seeing Christ's love will
shame me, I am content to be ashamed. My desire is, that my
Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself
with wondering at his love. I would I could weigh it, but I have
no balance for it. When I have worn my tongue to the stump,
in praising of Christ, I have done nothing to him. I must let him
alone, for my withered arms will not go about his high, wide, long,
and broad love. What remaineth then, but that my debt to the
love of Christ lye unpaid for all eternity ? All that are in Heaven
are black-shamed ^ with his love as well as I. We must all be
dyvours,^ together ; and the blessing of that houseful, or heaven-
ful of dyvours,^ shall rest forever upon him. Oh, if* this land
and nation would come and stand beside his inconceivable and
glorious perfectiojis, and look in, and love, and adore ! Would to
God I could bring in many lovers to Christ's house ! but this na-
tion hath forsaken the Fountain of living waters. Lord, cast not
water on Scotland's coal. Wo, wo will be to this land, because
of the day of the Lord's fierce anger, that is so fast coming.
Grace be with you.
Your affectionate brother, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CXXXV.
TO JEAN BROWN,
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I am glad
that ye go on at Christ's back, in this dark and cloudy time. It
were good to sell other things for him ; for when all these days
are over, we shall find it our advantage, that we have taken part
with Christ. I confidently believe that his enemies shall be his
footstool, and that he will make green flowers dead, withered hay,
when tlie honor and glory shall fall off them, like the bloom or
flower of a green herb shaken with the wind. It were not wis-
dom for us to think that Christ and the Gospel would come and
sit down at our fire-side : nay, but we must go out of our warm
houses, and seek Christ and his Gospel. It is not the sunny side
of Christ that we must look to, and we must not forsake him for
want of that ; but must set our face against what may befall us,
in following on, till he and we be through the briers and bushes,
on the dry ground. Our soft nature would be borne through the
troubles of this miserable life, in Christ's arms : and, it is his wis-
1 Be ashamed. 2 Utterly put to shame.
3 Bankrupts. < Oh, that.
Rutherford's letters. 215
dom, who knoweth our mould, that his bairns go wet-shod, and
cold-footed to Heaven. Oh, how sweet a thing were it for us to
learn to make our burdens light, by framing our hearts to the
burden, and making our Lord's will a law!
I find Christ and his cross not so ill ^ to please, nor yet such
troublesome guests, as men call them : nay, I think patience
should make the water, which Christ giveth us, good wine, and
his dross good metal : and we have cause to wait on ; for ere it
be long, our Master will be at us, and bring this whole world
out, before the sun and day-light, in their blacks and whites.
Happy are they who are found watching. Our sand-glass is not
so long as we need to weary. Time will eat away and root out
our woes and sorrow. Our heaven is in tbe bud, and growing
up to a harvest ; why then should we not follow on, seeing our
span-length of time will come to an inch ? Therefore, I commend
Christ to you as your last living, and longest living Husband, and
the staff of your old age. Let him now have the rest of your
days. And think not much of a storm upon the ship that Christ
saileth in ; there shall no passenger fall overboard, but the crazed
ship and the sea-sick passengers shall come to land safe.
I am in as sweet communion with Christ as a poor sinner can
be ; and am only pained that he hath nuich beauty and fairness,
and I little love ; he great power and mercy, and I httle faith; he
much hght, and I bleared eyes. Oh, that I saw him in the sweet-
ness of his love, and in his marriage-clothes, and were over head
and ears in love with that princely One, Christ .Tesus my Lord !
Alas ! my riven dish, and running-out vessel, can hold little of
Christ Jesus !
I have joy in this, that I would not refuse death, before I put
Christ's lawful heritage in men's trysting ; ^ and what know I, if
they would have pleased both Christ and me? Alas, that this
land hath put Christ to open rouping,^ and to an " Any man bids
more !" Blessed are they who would hold the crown on his head,
and buy Christ's honor with his own losses.
I rejoice to hear that your son John is coming to visit Christ,
and taste of his love. I hope that he will not lose his pains, nor
rue of that choice. I had always, (as I said often to you,) a great
love to dear Mr. John Brown, because I thought I saw Christ in
him, more than in his brethren. Fain would I write to him, to
stand by my sweet Master ; and I wish ye would let him read my
letter, and the joy I shall have if he will appear for, and side with
my Lord Jesus. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
1 Difficult,
2 That is. Rutherford rejoiced that he would rather choose death than submit
Christ's lawful heritage to be decided upon by any meetings of man's appointment.
3 Auctioning, public sale.
216 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CXXXVI.
TO JEAN MACMILLAN.
Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and jDeace be to you. — I can-
not come to you to give you my counsel ; and, howbeit I would
come, I cannot stay with you ; but I beseech you to keep Christ,
for I did what I could to put you within grips' of him. I told you
Christ's testament and latter-will plainly, and I kept nothing back
that my Lord gave me ; and I gave Christ to you with good
will : I pray you to make him your own, and go not from that
truth which I taught you in one hair breadth — that truth will
save you if ye follow it. Salvation is not an easy thing, and soon
gotten. I often told you that few are saved, and many damned :
I pray you to make your poor soul sure of salvation, and the seek-
mg of Heaven your daily task. If ye never had a sick night and
a pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ. Look
to the right marks of having closed with Christ. If ye love him
better than the world, and would quit all the world for him, then
that saith the work is sound. Oh, if ye saw the beauty of Jesus,
and smelled the fragrance of his love, you would run through fire
and water to be at him ! God send you him.
Pray for me, for I cannot forget you. Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER CXXXVII.
TO THE LADY BUSBIE,
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I am glad to
hear that Christ and ye are one, and that ye have made him your
" one thing," whereas many are painfully toiled in seeking many
things, and their many things are nothing. It is only best that
ye set yourself apart as a thing laid up and out of the gate,^
for Christ alone ; for ye are good for no other thing than Christ ;
and he hath been going about you these many years, by afflic-
tions, to engage you to himself — it were a pity and a loss to say
him nay. Verily I could wish that I could swim, through Hell ;
and all the ill weather in the world, and Christ in ray arms — but
it is my evil and folly, that except Christ come unsent for, I dow
not ^ go to seek him: when he and I fall a-reckoning, we are both
behind, he in payment,^ and I in counting ; and so marches * lie
still unred,'' and accounts uncleared betwixt us. Oh, that he would
take his own blood for coulits and miscounts,^ that I might be a
1 Within reach. 2 Out of the way. 3 Am not able.
* That is, in receiving payment. s Boundaries. * Unascertained.
' True and erroneous reckonings.
Rutherford's letters. 217
free man, and none had any claim to me but only, only Jesus. I
will think it no bondage to be rouped,' comprised,^ and possessed
by Christ as his bondman.
Tbink well of the visitations of your Lord : for I find one thing,
which I saw not well before, that when the saints are under trials,
and well humbled, little sins raise great cries, and war-shouts in
the conscience ; and in prosperity, conscience is a Pope, to give
dispensations, and let out and in, and give latitude and elbow-room
to our heart. Oh, how little care we for pardon at Christ's hand,
when we make dispensations ! And all is but bairns' play, till a
cross without beget a heavier cross within, and then we play no
longer with our idols. It is good still to be severe against our-
selves; for we but transform God's mercy into an idol, and an idol
that hath a dispensation to give, for the turning of the grace of
God into wantonjiess. Happy are they who take, up God, wrath,
justice, and sin, as they are in themselves : for we have mis-
carrying light, that parteth Avith child, when we have good res-
olutions : but, God be thanked, that salvation is not rolled upon
our wheels.
Oh, but Christ hath a saving eye ! salvation is in his eye-lids !
When he first looked on me I was saved; it cost him but a look to
make Hell quit of me ! Oh, but merits, free merits, and the dear
blood of God, were the best gale ^ that ever we could have gotten
out of Hell ! Oh, what a sweet, oh, what a safe and sure way is it, to
come out of Hell leaning on a Saviour ! That Christ and a sin-
ner should be one, and have Heaven betwixt them, and be halvers
of salvation, is the wonder of salvation. What more humble
could love be ? And what an excellent smell doth Christ cast on
his lower garden, where there grow but wild flowers, if we speak
by way of comparison ; but there is nothing but perfect garden
flowers in Heaven, and the best plenishing'' that is there, is Christ.
We are all obliged to love Heaven for Christ's sake. He graceth
Heaven, and all his Father's house with his presence. He is a
Rose that beautifieth all the Upper Garden of God — a leaf of that
rose of God for smell is worth a world. Oh, that he would blow
his smell upon a withered and dead soul ! Let us, then, go on to
meet with him, and to be filled with the sweetness of his love.
Nothing will hold him from us. He hath decreed to put time, sin,
Hell, devils, inen and death out of the way, and to rid the rough
way betwixt us and him, that we may enjoy one another. It is
strange and wonderful that he would think long^ in Heaven with-
out us ; and that he would have the company of sinners to solace
and delight himself withal in Heaven. And now the supper is
abiding us. Christ the bridegroom, with desire, is waiting on, till
the bride, the Lamb's wife, be busked'' for the marriage, and the
great hall be red ^ for the meeting of that joyful couple. Oh,
fools ! Vv'hat do we here ? and why sit we still ? Why sleep
1 Auctioned. 2 Attached for debt. 3 Way.
< Furniture. 5 J'o think long, to long. 6 Decked.
"> Cleared.
218 Rutherford's letters.
we in the prison ? Were it not best to make us wings to flee up
to our blessed Match, our marrow,' and our fellow Friend ?
I think, mistress, that ye are looking thereaway,^ and that this
is your second or third thought. Make forward, your Guide wait-
eth on you.
I cannot but bless you for your care and kindness to the saints.
God give you to find mercy in that day of our Lord Jesus ; to whose
saving grace I recommend you. -*
Yours, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXXVIII.
TO JOHN EWART, BAILLIE OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT.
My very Worthy, and Dear Friend, — I cannot but most
kindly thank you for the expressions of your love: your love and
respect to me is a great comfort to me.
I bless His high and glorious name, that the terrors of great men
have not affrighted me from openly avouching the Son of God ;
nay, his cross is the sweetest burden that ever I bear ; it is such
a burden, as wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me
forward to my harbor, I have not much cause to fall in love with
the world : but rather to wish, that He who sitteth upon the floods
would bring my broken ship to land, and keep my conscience safe
in these dangerous times, for wrath from the Lord is coming on
this sinful land.
It were good, that we prisoners of hope know of our strong hold
to run to, before the storm come on ; therefore, sir, I beseech you
by tbe mercies of God, and comforts of his Spirit, by the blood of
your Saviour, and by your compearance^ before the sin-revenging
Judge of the world, keep your garments clean, and stand for the
truth of Christ, which ye profess. When the time shall come that
your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, your breath grow
cold, and tbis house of clay shall totter, and your one foot shall
be over the march,^ in eternity, it will be your comfort and joy,
that ye gave your name to Christ. The greatest part of the world
think Heaven at the next door, and that Christianity is an easy
task ; but they will be beguiled. Worthy sir, I beseech you, make
sure work of salvation. I have found by experience, tbat all I
could do hath had much ado in the day of my trial ; and, there-
fore, lay up a sure foundation for the time to come.
I cannot requite you, for your undeserved favors to me and
my now afflicted brother. But I trust to remember you to God.
Remember me heartily to your kind wife.
Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S, R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1G37.
1 Partner. 2 To those parts,
3 Appearance. * Boundary.
Rutherford's letters. 219
LETTER CXXXIX.
TO WILLIAM FULLERTON, PROVOST OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT.
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — 1
am obliged to your love in God.
I beseech you, sir, let nothing be so dear to you as Christ's
truth, for salvation is worth all the world ; and, therefore, be not
afraid of men that shall die. The Lord will do for you in your
suffering for him, and will bless your house and seed ; and ye
have God's promise, that ye shall have his presence in fire, water,
and in seven tribulations. Your day shall wear to an end, and
your sun go down. In death it will be your joy, that ye have
ventured all ye have for Christ ; and there is not a promise of
Heaven made, but to such as are willing to suffer for it — it is a
castle taken by force. This earth is but the clay portion of bas-
tards ; and, therefore, no wonder that the world smile on its own ;
but better things are laid up for his lawfully begotten bairns, whom
the world hateth.
I have experience to speak this, for I would not exchange my
prison and sad nights, with the court, honor, and ease of my ad-
versaries. My Lord is pleased to make many unknown faces to
laugh upon me, and to provide a lodging for me ; and he himself
visiteth my soul with feasts of spiritual comforts. Oh, how sweet
a' master is Christ ! Blessed are they who lay down all for him.
I thank you kindly for your love to my distressed brother. Ye
have the blessing and prayers of the prisoner of Christ to you,
your wife and children.
Remember my love and blessing to William and Samuel. I
desire them in their youth to seek the Lord, and to fear his great
name ; to pray twice a-day, at least, to God, and to read God's
word ; to keep themselves from cursing, lying, and filthy talking.
Now the only wise God, and the presence of the Son of God, be
with you all.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1G37.
LETTER CXL.
i TO ROBERT GLENDINNING.
My Dear Friend, — -Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I
thank you most kindly for your care of me, and your love and
respective kindness to my brother in his distress. I pray the Lord
that ye may find mercy in the day of Christ : and I entreat you,
sir, to consider the times which ye live in, and that your soul is
more worth to you than the whole world, which in the day of the
220 Rutherford's letters.
blowing of the Last Trumpet, shall lye in white ashes, as an old
castle burned to nothing: and remember that judgment and eter-
nity is before you. My dear, and worthy friend, let me entreat
you in Christ's name, and by the salvation of your soul, and by
your compearance before the dreadful and sin-revenging Judge
of the world, to make your accounts ready. Read them ere ye
come to the water-side ; for your afternoon will wear short, and
your sun fall low and go down : and ye know, that this long time
your Lord hath waited on you. Oh, how comfortable a thing it
will be to you, when time shall be no more, and your soul shall
depart out of the house of clay, to vast and endless eternity, to
have your soul dressed up, and prepared for your Bridegroom !
No loss is comparable to the loss of the soul : there is no hope of
regaining that loss. Oh, how joyful would my soul be to hear
that ye would start to the gate ^ and contend for the crown, and
leave all vanities, and make Christ your garland ! Let your soul
put away your old lovers, and let Christ have your whole love.
I have some experience to write of this to you. My witness is
in Heaven that I would not exchange my chains and bonds for
Christ, and my sighs, for ten worlds' glory. I judge this clay idol,
which Adam's sons are rouping'' and selUng their souls for, not
worth a drink of cold water. Oh if your soul were in my soul's
stead, how sick would ye be of love for that fairest One, that Fair-
est among the sons of men ! May-flowers and morning-vapor, and
summer-mist posteth not so fast away, as these worm-eaten pleas-
ures which we follow. We build castles in the air, and night-
dreams are our daily idols that we dote on. Salvation, salvation
is our only necessary thing. Sir, call home your thoughts to this
work, to inquire for your Well-beloved. This earth is the portion
of bastards ; seek the Son's inheritance, and let Christ's truth be
dear to you.
I pawnd^ my salvation on it, that this is the honor of Christ's
Kingdom which I now suffer for, — and this world, I hope, shall
not come between me and my garland, — and that this is the way
to life. When ye and I shall lye lumps of pale clay upon the
ground, our pleasures that we now naturally love, shall be less
than nothing in that day. Dear brother, fulfil my joy, and betake
you to Christ without further delay. Ye will be fain at length to
seek him, or do infinitely worse.
Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
1 To start to the gate, to begin with alacrity. 2 Auctioning.
3 Pledged.
Rutherford's letters. 221
LETTER GXLI.
TO WILLIAM GLENDENNING.
Well-beloved, and Dear Brother,— Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. — I thank you most kindly for your care and love
to me, and in particular to my brother, in his distress in Edinburgh.
Go on through your waters without wearying ; your Guide know-
eth the way, follow him, and cast your cares and temptations upon
him ; and let not worms, the sons of men, aflright you — they shall
die, and the moth shall eat them. Keep your garland ; there is
no less at the stake, in this game betwixt us and the world, than,
our conscience and salvation : we have need to take heed to the
game, and not to yield to them. Let them take other things from
us; but here, in matters of conscience, we must hold and draw ^
with kings, and set ourselves in terms of opposition with the shields
of the earth. Oh, the sweet communion for evermore, that hath
been between Christ and his prisoner ! He wearieth not to be
kind. He is the fairest sight I see in Aberdeen or in any part that
ever my feet were in.
Remember my hearty kindness to your wife. I desire her to
believe, and lay her cares on God, and make fast work of salva-
tion. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his only Lord JesuSj. S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CXLH. • .
TO MR. HUGH HENDERSON.
My Reverend, and Dear Brother, — I hear that ye bear
the marks of Christ's dying about with you, and that your brethren
have cast you out for your Master's sake. Let us wait on till the
evening, and till our reckoning in black and white come before our
Master. Brother, since we must have a devit to trouble us, I love
a raging devil best. Our Lord knoweth what sort of devil we have
need of: it is best that Satan be in his own skin, and look like
hhnself ; Christ weeping looketh like himself also, with whom
Scribes and Pharisees were at yea and nay, and sharp contradic-
tion.
Ye have heard of the patience of Job. When he lay in the
ashes, God was with him, clawing and curing his scabs, and letting
out his boils, comforting his soul ; and he took him up at last.
That God is not dead yet : he will stoop and take up fallen bairns ;
many broken legs since Adam's days hath he spelked,- and many
weary hearts hath he refreshed. Bless him for comfort. Why,
1 Must struggle with. 2 Bound up with splints.
222 Rutherford's letters.
none cometh dry from David's well. Let us go among the rest,
and cast down our toom ' buckets into Christ's ocean, and suck con-
solations out of him. We are not so sore stricken, but we may
fill Christ's hall with weeping. We have not gotten our answer
from him yet. Let us lay up our broken pleas to a full sea, and
keep them till the day of Christ's coming. We and this world will
not be even "^ till then : they would take our garment from us ; but
let us hold and them draw.
Brother, it is a strange world if we laugh not. I never saw the
like of it, if there be not " paiks the man," ^ for this contempt done
to the Son of God ? We must do as those who keep the bloody
napkin to the baillie, and let him see blood : we must keep our
wrongs to our Judge, and let him see our bluddered'' and foul faces.
Prisoners of hope must run to Christ, with the gutters that tears
have made on their cheeks.
Brother, for myself, I am Christ's dawted^ one for the present;
and I live upon no deaf nuts,^ (as we use to speak ;) he hath
opened fountains to me in the wilderness. Go, look to my Lord
Jesus : his love to me is such, that I defy the world to find either
brim or bottom in it. Grace be with you.
Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CXLin. '
TO THE EARL OF CASSILLIS.
Right Honorable, and my very Good Lord, — Grace, mer-
cy, and peace be to your Lordship — I hope that your Lordship will
be pleased to pardon my boldness, if, upon report of your zealous
and forward mind, which I hear our Lord hath given you in this
his honorable cause, when Christ and his Gospel are so foully
wronged, I speak to your Lordship on paper, entreating your
Lordship to go on in the strength of the Lord, toward, and against
a storm of antichristian wind, that bloweth upon the face of this
your poor mother-church, Christ's lily amongst the thorns. It is
your liordship's glory and happiness, when ye see such a blow
coming upon Christ, to cast up your arm to prevent it. Neither
is it a cause that needeth to blush before the sun, or to flee the
sentence or censure of impartial beholders, seeing the question,
indeed, (if it were rightly stated,) is about the prerogative-royal of
our princely and royal Lawgiver, our Lord Jesus, whose ancient
march-stones,'' and land-bounds, our bastard lords, and earthly
generation of tyrannizing prelates, have boldly and shamefully
removed : and they who have but half an eye, may see, that it is
1 Empty. 2 Quits.
3 An expression used by those who were about to engage in a fight. Paiks signi-
fies blows. * Blurred.
5 Fondled, cockered. « Nuts without a kernel. ' Land-marks.
Rutherford's letters. 223
the greedy desires of time idolizing Demases, and the itching scab
of ambitious and climbing Diotrepheses, (who love the goat's life,
to climb till they cannot find a way to set their soles on ground
again,) that hath made, such a wide breach in our Zion's beautiful
walls : — and these are the men who seek no hire for the crucify-
ing of Christ, but his coat.
Oh, how forlorn and desolate is the bride of Christ made to all
passers-by ! Who seeth not Christ buried in this land, his pro-
phets hidden in caves, silenced, banished, and imprisoned ; truth
weeping in sackcloth before the judges, Parliament, and the rulers
of the land ? But her bill is cast by them, and holiness hideth
itself, fearing in the streets, for the reproaches and persecution of
men : justice is fallen aswoon ' in the gate ; and the long shadows
of the evening are stretched out upon us. Wo, w^o to us, for our
day flieth away. What remaineth, but that Antichrist set down
his tent in the midst of us, except that your Lordship, and others
with you, read Christ's supplication, and give him that which the
most lewd and scandalous wretches in this land may have before
a judge, even the poor man's due, law and justice for God's sake ?
Oh, therefore, my noble, and dear Lord, as ye have begun, go on,
in the mighty power and strength of the Lord, to cause our Lord
in his Gospel, and afflicted members, to laugh, and to cause the
Christian churches, (whose eyes are all noAV upon you,) to sing
for joy when Scotland's moon shall shine like the light of the sun,
and the sun like the light of seven days in one. Ye can do no
less than run and bear up the head of your swooning, and dying
Mother-church, and plead for the production of her ancient char-
ters. They hold out and put out, they hold in, and bring in at
their pleasure, men in God's house. They stole the keys from
Christ and his Church, and came in like the thief and the robber,
not by the door, Christ ; and now their song is " Authority, au-
thority, obedience to church-governors." When such a bastard
and lawless pretended step-dame, as our prelacy, is gone mad, it
is your place, who are the nobles, to rise and bind them : at least
law should fetter such wild bulls as they are, w^ho push all who
oppose themselves to their domination. Alas ! what have we lost,
since prelates were made master-coiners, to change our gold into
brass, and to mix the Lord's wine with water ? Blessed forever
shall ye be of the Lord, if ye help Christ against the mighty, and
shall deliver the flock of God, scattered upon the mountainis in the
dark and cloudy day, out of the hands of these idol-shepherds.
Fear not men that shall be moth-eaten clay, that sliall be rolled
up in a chest, and casten under the earth : let the Holy One of
Israel be your fear, and be courageous for the Lord and his truth.
Remember that your accounts are coming upon you with
wings, as fast as time posteth. Remember what peace with God
in Christ, and the presence of the Son of God, the revealed and
felt sweetness of his love, will be to you, when eternity shall put
1 Into a swoon.
224 Rutherford's letters.
time to the door, and ye shall take good night at time, and this
little shepherd's tent of clay, this inn of a borrowed earth. I hope
that your Lordship is now and then sending out thoughts to view
this world's noughtiness,' and vanity, and the hoped-for glory of
the life to come ; and that ye resolve that Christ shall have your-
self, and all yours, at command for him, his honor and Gospel.
Thus trusting that your Lordship will pardon my boldness, I
pray that the only wise God, the very God of peace, may preserve,
strengthen, and establish you to the end.
Your Lordship^s,
At all command and obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXLIV.
TO MY LORD BALMERINO.
My very Noble, and truly Honorable Lord, — I make
bold to write news to your Lordship from my prison, though your
Lordship have experience more than I can have. At my first
entry here, I was not a httle casten down with challenges,^ for
old repented-of sins ; and Satan and my own apprehensions
made a lie of Christ, tliat he had casten a dry, withered tree over
the dyke of the vineyard ; but it was my folly ; blessed be his
great name, the fire cannot burn the dry tree. He is pleased
now to feast the exiled prisoner with his lovely presence : for it
suiteth Christ well to be kind, and he dineth and suppeth with
such a sinner as I am. I am in Christ's tutoring here. He hath
made me content with a borrowed fireside, and it casteth as much
heat as mine own. I want nothing but real possession of Christ :
and he hath given me a pawn of that also, which I hope to keep
till he come himself to lopse the pawn.— I cannot get help to
praise his high name. He hath mde me king over my losses, im-
prisonment, banishment, and only my dumb sabbaths stick in my
throat : but I forgive Christ's wisdom in that. I dare not say one
word; he hath done it, and I will lay my hand upon my mouth :
if any other had done it to me, I could not have borne it.
Now my Lord, I must tell your Lordship, that I would not give
a drinl^ of cold water for this clay-idol, this plastered world. I
testify and give it under my own hand, that Christ is most worthy
to be suffered for. Our lazy flesh, which would have Christ to
cry down crosses by open proclamation, hath but raised a slander
upon the cross of Christ. My Lord, I hope that ye will not forget
what he hath done for your soul : I think that ye are in Christ's
count-book, as his obliged debtor.
Grace, grace be with your spirit.
Your Lordship's obliged servant, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
I Nothingness. 2 Self-accusations.
Rutherford's letters. 225
LETTER CXLV.
TO MY LADY MAR, YOUNGER.
My very Noble, and Dear Lady, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you — I received your Ladyship's letter, which hath comforted
my soul. God give you to find mercy in the day of Christ.
I am in as good terms and court with Christ, as an exiled op-
pressed prisoner of Christ can be. I am still welcome to his
house; he knoweth my knock, and letteth in a poor friend.
Under this black, rough tree of the cross of Christ, he hath
ravished me with his love, and taken my heart to Heaven with
him. Well and long may he brook' it. I would not nilTer"^
Christ with all the joys that man or angel can devise beside him.
Who hath such cause to speak honorably of Christ as I have?
Christ is King of all crosses, and he hath made his saints little
kings under him ; and he can ride and triumph upon weaker
bodies than I am, (if any can be weaker,) and his horse will
neither fall nor stumble.
Madam, your Ladyship hath much ado with Christ, for your
soul, husband, children, and house. Let him find much employ-
ment for his calling wilh you ; for he is such a friend as delighteth
to be burdened with suits and employments ; and the more ye lay
on him, and the more homely ^ ye be with him, the more welcome.
Oh the depth of Ciirist's love ! It hath neither brim nor bottom.
Oh, if* this blind world saw his beauty ! When I count with him
for his mercies to me, I must stand still and wonder, and go away
as a poor dyvour,^ who hath nothing to pay ; — free forgiveness is
payment. I would that I could get him set on high; for his love
hath made me sick, and I die except I get real possession.
Grace, grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CXLVL
TO JAMES MACADAM.
My very Dear, and Worthy Friend, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. — I long to hear of your growing in grace, and of
your advancing in your journey to Heaven. It will be the joy of
my heart to hear that yc hold your face up the brae,*^ and wade
through temptations without fearing what man can do. Christ
shall, when he ariseth, mow down his enemies, and lay bouks,''
(as they use to speak,) on the green, and fill the pits with dead
' Enjoy. - Exchange. 3 Familiar. « Oh, that.
6 Bankrupt. ^ Ascent. ' Carcases.
15
226 Rutherford's letters.
bodies, (Ps. ex. 6.) They shall lie like handfuls of withered hay,
when he ariseth to the prey. Salvation, salvation is the only ne-
cessary thing : this clay-idol, the world, is not to be sought ; it is
a morsel not for you, but for hunger-bitten bastards. Contend for
salvation. Your master, Christ, won Heaven with strokes ; it is
a besieged castle, it must be taken with violence. Oh, this world
thinketh Heaven but at the next door, and that godliness may
sleep in a bed of down, till it come to Heaven ! — but that will not
do it.
For myself, I am as well as Christ's prisoner can be ; for by
him I am master and king of all my crosses ; I am above the
prison, and the lash of men's tongues; Christ triumpheth in me.
I have been casten down, and heavy with fears, and hunted with
challenges, I was swimming in the depths, but Christ had his
hand under my chin all the time, and took good heed that I should
not lose breath ; and now I have gotten my feet again, and there
are love-feasts of joy, and spring-tides of consolation betwixt Christ
and me. We agree well : I have court with him ; I am still wel-
come to his house. Oh, my short arms cannot fathom his love !
I beseech you, I charge you, to help me to praise. Ye have a
prisoner's prayers, therefore forget me not.
I desire Sibylla to remember me dearly to all in that parish who
know Christ, as if I had named them.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637,
LETTER CXLVH.
TO MY VERY DEAR BROTHER, WILLIAM LIVINGSTON,
My very Dear Brother, — I rejoice to hear that Christ hath
run away witlr your young love, and that ye are so early in the
morning matched with such a lord ; for a young man is often a
dressed lodging for the Devil to dwell in. Be humble and thank-
ful for grace, and weigh it not so much by weight, as if it be true,
Christ will not cast water on your smoking coal ; he never yet
put out a dim candle that was lighted at the Sun of Righteousness.
I recommend to you prayer and watching over the sins of your
youth ; for I know that missive letters ^ go between the Devil and
young blood, Satan hath a friend at ccurt in the heart of youth ;
and there pride, luxury, lust, revenge, forgetfulness of God, are
hired as his agents, Happy is your soul, if Christ man the house,
and take the keys himself, and command all — ^as it suiteth him
full well to rule all, wherever he is. Keep Christ, and entertain
him well : cherish his grace ; blow upon your own coal ; and let
him tutor you.
1 Letters containing the outUnes of an engagement, which is afterwards to be ex-
tended in due form.
Rutherford's letters. 227
Now for myself; know that I am fully agreed with my Lord.
Christ hath put the Father and me into each other's arms : —
many a sweet bargain he made before, and he hath made this
among the rest. I reign as king over my crosses. I will not
flatter a temptation, nor give the Devil a good word. I defy
Hell's iron gates : God hath passed over my quarrelling of him at
my entry here, and now he feedeth and feasteth with me.
Praise, praise with me ; and let us exalt his name together.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
Your brother in Christ, S. R.
LETTER CXLYIII.
TO WILLIAM GORDON, OF WHITEPARK.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. — I long
to hear from you. I am here the Lord's prisoner and patient,
handled as softly by my Physician as if I were a sick man under
cure. I was at hard terms with my Lord, and pleaded with him,
but I had the worst side. It is a wonder that he should have suf-
fered the like of me to have nicknamed the Son of his love, Christ,
and to call him a changed Lord Avho had forsaken me ; but mis-
belief hath nev.er a good word to speak of Christ. The dross of
my cross gathered a scum of fears in the fire, doubtings, impa-
tience, unbehef, challenging of Providence as sleeping, and as not
regarding my sorrow ; but my Goldsmith, Christ, was pleased to
take off the scum, and burn it in the fire. And, blessed be my
Refiner, he hath made the metal better, and furnished new supply
of grace, to cause me hold out weight ; and I hope that he hath
not lost one grain-weight by burning his servant. Now his love
in my heart casteth a mighty heat : he knoweth that the desire I
have to be at himself paineth me. I have sick nights and frequent
fits of love-fevers for my Well-beloved. Nothing paineth me now
but want of presence. I think it long till day. I challenge ^ time,
as too slow in its pace, that holdeth my only, only fair One, my
Love, my Well-beloved from me. Oh, if we were together once !
I am like an old crazed ship that hath endured many storms, and
that would fain be in the lee of the shore, and fearetli new storms ;
I would be that 2 nigh Heaven, that the shadow of it might break
the force of the storm, and the crazed ship might win * to land.
My Lord's sun casteth a heat of love and beam of light on my
soul. My blessing thrice every day upon the sweet cross of Christ.
I am not ashamed of my garland, "The banished minister,"
which is the term of Aberdeen. Love, love defieth reproaches.
The love of Christ hath a corslet of proof on it, and arrows will not
draw blood of it. We are more than conquerors thiough the
blood of Him that loved us, (Rom. viii.) The Devil and the world
1 Wrong faith. « Accuse. 3 So. * Get.
228 Rutherford's letters.
cannot wound the love of Christ. I am further from yielding to
the course of defection than when I came hither : — sufferings blunt
not the fiery edge of love. Cast love into the floods of Hell, it will
swim above. It careth not for the world's busked ^ and plastered
offers. It hath pleased my Lord so to line my heart with the love
of my Lord Jesus, that, as if the field were already won, and I on
the other side of time, I laugh at the world's golden pleasures, and
at this dirty idol, which the sons of Adam worship. This worm-
eaten god is that which my soul hath fallen out of love with.
Sir, ye were once my hearer : I desire now to hear from you and
your wife. I salute her and your children with blessings. I am
glad that ye are still hand-fasted ^ with Christ. Go on in your
journey, and take the city by violence. Keep your garments
clean. Be clean virgins to your Husband the Lamb. The \yorld
shall follow you to Heaven's gates : and ye would not wish it to go
in with you. Keep fast Christ's love. Pray for me, as I do for
you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CXLIX.
TO MR. GEORGE GILLESPIE.
Reverend, and Dear Brother, — I received your letter. — As
for my case, brother, I bless His glorious name, that my losses are
my gain, my prison a palace, and my sadness joyfulness. At my
first entry, my apprehensions so wrought upon my cross, that I
became jealous 3 of the love of Christ, as being by him thrust out
of the vineyard, and I was under great challenges, (as ordinarily
melted gold casteth forth a drossy scum, and Satan and our cor-
ruption form the first words that the heavy cross speaketh, and say,
" God is angry, he loveth you not,") but our apprehensions are not
canonical ; they indite lies of God and Christ's love. But since my
spirit was settled, and the clay has fallen to the bottom of the well,
I see better what Christ was doing. And now my Lord is returned
with salvation under his wings. Now I want little of half a
heaven, and I find Christ every day so sweet, comfortable, lovely,
and kind, that three things only trouble me. 1, I see not how to
be thankful, or how to get help to praise that royal King, who
raiseth up those that are bowed down. 2, His love paineth me,
and woundeth my soul, so that I am in a fever for want of real
presence. 3, An excessive desire to take instruments^ in God's
name, that this is Christ and his truth, which I now suffer for ;
yea, the apple of the eye of Christ's honor, even the sovereignty
and royal privileges of our King and Lawgiver, Christ ; and, there-
1 Decked. 2 Affianced. 3 Suspicious.
* To declare, and claim that the declaration be recorded as evidence.
* Rutherford's letters. 229
fore, let no man scaur ' at Christ's cross, or raise an ill report upon
him, or it ; for he beareth the sufferer and it both.
I am here troubled with the disputes of the great doctors, (espe-
cially with D. B. in ceremonial and Arminian controversies, for all
are corrupt here ;) but, I thank God, with no detriment to the
truth, or discredit to my profession. So, then, I see that Christ
can triumph in a weaker man nor ^ I : and who can be more weak ?
but his grace is sufficient for me.
Brother, remember our old covenant, and pray for me, and write
to me your case. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CL.
TO JEAN GOR DON.
My very Dear, and Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you — I long to hear from you. I exhort you to set up
the brae ^ to the King's city, that must be taken by violence. Your
afternoon's sun is wearing low. Time will eat up your frail life,
like a worm gnawing at the root of a May-flower. Lend Christ
your heart. Set him as a seal there. Take him in within, and
let the world, and children stand at the door. They are not
yours ; make you and them for your proper owner, Christ. It is
good that he is your Husband and their Father. What missing
can there be of a dying man, when God filleth his chair ? Give
hours of the day to prayer. Fashi Christ, (if I may speak so,)
and importune him ; be often at his gate ; give his door no rest.
I can tell you that he will be found. Oh, what sweet fellowship
is betwixt him and me ! I am imprisoned, but he is not imprisoned.
He hath shamed me with his kindness. He hath come to my
prison, and run away with my heart and all my love. Well may
he brook ^ it ! I wish that my love get never an owner but Christ.
Fy, fy upon old lovers, that held us so long asunder ! We shall
not part now. He and I shall be heard, before he win out of my
grips.^ I resolve to wrestle with Christ, ere I quit him. But my
love to him hath casten my soul into a fever, and there is no cool-
ing of my fever, till I get real possession of Christ. O strong,
strong love of Jesus, thou hast wounded my heart with thine ar-
rows ! 0 pain ! Oh pain of love for Christ ! Who will help me
to praise ?
Let me have your prayers. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1G37.
1 Boggle. 2 Than. 3 Ascent.
* Pester. ^ Possess and enjoy. ^ Get out of my hands.
230 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CLI.
TO MR. JAMES BRUCE, MINISTER OP THE GOSPEL.
Reverend, and Well-beloved Brother, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. — Upon the nearest acquaintance, that we
are Father's children, I thought good to write to you. My case in
my bonds, for the honor of my royal Prince and King, Jesus, is as
good as becometh the witness of such a sovereign King. At my
first coming hither, I was in great heaviness, wrestling with chal-
lenges, being burdened in heart, (as I am yet,) for my silent sab-
baths, and for a bereaved people, young ones, new-born, plucked
from the breasts, and the children's table drawn. I thought I was
a dry tree cast over the dyke of the vineyard : but my secret con-
ceptions of Christ's love, at his sweet and long-desired return to my
soul, were found to be a lie of Christ's love, forged by the Tempter,
and my own heart, and I am persuaded it was so. Now there is
greater peace and security within than before : the court is raised
and dismissed, for it was not fenced ' in God's name. I was far
mistaken, who should have summoned Christ for unkindness ;
misted ^ faith, and my fever conceived amiss of him. Now, now,
he is pleased to feast a poor prisoner, and to refresh me with joy
unspeakable and glorious ; so, as the Holy Spirit is witness, that
my sufferings are for Christ's truth ; and God forbid that I should
deny the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and make him a false wit-
ness. Now I testify under my hand, out of some small experience,
that Christ's cause, even with the cross, is better than the King's
crown ; and that his reproaches are sweet, his cross perfumed, the
walls of my prison fair and large, my losses gain.
I desire you, my dear brother, to help me to praise, and to re-
member me in your prayer to God. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CLH.
TO JOHN GORDON, AT RUSCO, IN GALLOWAY.
My Worthy, and Dear Brother, — Misspend not your short
sand-glass, which runneth very fast; seek your Lord in time.
Let me obtain of you a letter under your hand, for a promise to
God, by his grace, to take a new course of walking with God.
Heaven is not at the next door ; I find it hard to be a Christian ;
there is no little thrusting and thringing^ to thrust in at Heaven's
gates ; it is a castle taken by force : — " Many shall strive to enter
in, and shall not be able."
I Opened by declaring the constitution. 2 Bewildered.
3 Pressing, as througli a crowd or thicket.
Rutherford's letters. 231
I beseech and obtest you in the Lord, to make conscience of rash
and passionate oaths, of raging and sudden, avenging anger, of
night drinking, of needless companionry.' of sabbath-breaking, of
hurting any under you by word or deed, of hating your very ene-
mies. " Except ye receive the Kingdom of God as a httle child,"
and be as meek and sober-minded as a babe, " ye cannot enter
into the Kingdom of God." That is a word which should touch
you near, and make you stoop and cast yourself down, and make
your great spirit fall. I know that this will not be easily done,
but I recommend it to you as you tender your part of the King-
dom of Heaven.
Brother, I may, from new experience, speak of Christ to you.
Oh, if'^ ye saw in him what I see ! A river of God's unseen joys
have flowed from bank to brae^ over my soul since I parted with
you. I wish that I wanted part, so being ye might have ; that
your soul might be sick of love for Christ, or rather satiated with
him. This clay idol, the world, would seem to you, then, not
worth a fig ; time will eat you out of possession of it. When the
eye-strings break, and the breath groweth cold, and the impris-
oned soul looketh out of the windows of the clay-house, ready to
leap out into eternity, what would you then give for a lamp full
of oil ? Oh seek it now.
I desire you to correct and curb banning,* swearing, lying, drink-
ing, sabbath-breaking, and idle spending of the Lord's day in ab-
sence from the kirk, as far as your authority reacheth in that
parish.
I hear that a man is to be thrust into that place, to the which
I have God's right: I know that ye should have a voice by God's
word in that, (Acts i. 15, 16, to the end, and Acts vi. 3, 5.) Ye
would be loath that any prelate should put you out of your pos-
session earthly, and this is your right. What I write to you, I
write to your wife. Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CLIII.
TO THE LADY HALLHILL.
Dear, and Christian Lady, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. — I longed much to write to your Ladyship ; but now, the
Lord offering a fit occasion, I would not omit to do it.
I cannot but acquaint your Ladyship with the kind dealing of
Christ to my soul, in this house of my pilgrimage, that your Lady-
ship may know that he is as good as he is called : for at my first
entry into this trial, (being casten down and troubled with chal-
lenges and jealousies of His We, whose name and testimony I
1 Companions. 2 Oh, that.
3 From bank to bank. * Minced oaths.
232* Rutherford's letters.
now bear in my bonds,) I feared notbing more than that I was
casten over the dyke of the vineyard, as a dry tree. But, blessed
be his great name, the dry tree was in the fire, and was not burnt ;
his dew came down and quickened the root of a withered plant ;
and now he is come again with joy, and hath been pleased to feast
his exiled and afl[iicted prisoner with the joy of his consolations.
Now I weep, but am not sad ; I am chastened, but I die not ; I
have loss, but I want nothing ; this water cannot drown me, this
fire cannot burn me, because of the good-will of Him that dwelt
in the bush. The worst things of Christ, his reproaches, his cross,
are better than Egypt's treasures. He hath opened his door, and
taken into his house-of-wine a poor sinner, and hath left me so
sick of love for my Lord Jesus, that if Heaven were at my dispos-
ing, I would give it for Christ, and would not be content to go to
Heaven, except I were persuaded that Christ were there. I would
not give, nor exchange my bonds for the Prelates' velvets ; nor my
prison for their coaches ; nor my sighs for all the world's laughter :
— this clay idol, the Vv^orld, hath no great court ^ in my soul. Christ
hath come, and run away to Heaven with my heart and my love,
so that neither heart nor love is mine : — I pray God, that Christ
may keep both without reversion. In my estimation, as I am
now disposed, if my part of this world's clay were rouped^ and
sold, I would think it dear of a drink of water. I see Christ's love
is so kingly, that it will not abide a marrow;^ it must have a
throne all alone in the soul. And I see that apples beguile bairns,
howbeit they be worm-eaten : the moth-eaten pleasures of this
present world make bairns believe ten is a himdred, and yet all
that are here are but shadows. If they would draw by the cur-
tain that is hung betwixt them and Christ, they should see them-
selves fools who have so long miskenned^ the Son of God. I seek
no more, next to Heaven, than that he may be glorified in a pris-
oner of Christ ; and that in my behalf many would praise His high
and glorious name who heareth the sighing of the prisoner.
Remember my service to the Laird your husband, and to your
son my acquaintance. I wish that Christ had his young love,
and that in the morning he would start to the gate to seek that
which this world knoweth not, and, therefore, doth not seek it.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1G37.
LETTER CLIV.
TO THE MUCH HONORED JOHN OSBURN, PROVOST OF AYR.
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you —
Upon oiu" small acquaintance, and* the good report I hear of you,
1 Influence. 2 Auctioned.
3 A fellow companion. < Mistaken, misapprehended.
Rutherford's letters. 233
I could not but write to you : I have nothing to say, but that
Christ, in that honorable place he hath put you in, hath intrusted
you with a dear pledge, which is his own glory ; and hath armed
you with his sword to keep the pledge and make a good account
of it to God. Be not afraid of men. Your Master can mow down
his enemies, and make withered hay of fair flowers. Your time
will not be long : after your afternoon will come your evening,
and after evening, night. Serve Christ, back him ; let his cause
be your cause ; give not an hair-breadth of truth away ; for it is
not yours, but God's. Then, since ye are going, take Christ's tes-
tificate ' with you out of this life — " Well done, good and faithful
servant !" His " well-done" is worth a shipful of " good-days"
and earthly honors. I have cause to say this, because I find him
Truth itself. In my sad days, Christ laugheth cheerfully, and
saith, " All will be well !" Would to God that all this kingdom,
and all tliat know God, knew what is betwixt Christ and me in
this prison — what kisses, embracements, and love connnunions.
I take his cross in my arms with joy ; I bless it, I rejoice in it —
suffering for Christ is my garland. I would not exchange Christ
for ten thousand worlds ! nay, if the comparison could stand, I
would not exchange Christ with Heaven.
Sir, pray for me, and the prayevs, and blessing of a prisoner of
Christ meet you in all your straits. Grace be with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus, his Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CLV.
TO HIS LOVING FRIEND, JOHN HENDERSON.
Loving Friend, — Continue in the love of Christ, and the doc-
trine which I taught you faithfully, and painfully, according to
my measure. I am free of your blood. Fear the dreadful name
of God. Keep in mind the examinations which I taught you, and
love the truth of God. Death, as fast as time fleeth, chaseth you out
of this life ; it is possible that ye may make your reckoning with your
Judge before I see you. Let salvation be your care, night and
day, and set aside hours and times of the day for prayer. I re-
joice to hear that there is prayer in your house. See that your
servants keep the Lord's day. This dirt and god of clay, I mean
the vain world, is not worth the seeking.
An hireling pastor is to be thrust in upon you, into the room to
which 1 have Christ's warrant and right. Stand to your liberties,
for the word of God alloweth you a vote in choosing your pastor.
Wliat I write to you, I write to your wife. Commend me
heartily to her. The grace of God be with you.
Your loving friend, and pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
1 Certificate of character.
234 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CLVI.
TO JOHN MEINE.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you — I won-
der that ye sent me not an answer to my last letter, for I stand in ■
need of it. I am in some piece of court ^ witb our great King, "
whose love would cause a dead man to speak, and live : whether
my court will continue or not, I cannot well say ; but I have his
ear frequently, and, (to his glory only I speak it,) no penury of the
love-kisses of the Son of God. He thinketh good to cast apples to
me in my prison, to play withal, lest I should think long ^ and
faint. I must give over all attempts to fathom the depth of his
love. All I can do is, but to stand beside his great love, and look
and wonder. My delots of thankfulness affright me : I fear that
my creditor get a dy vour-bill ^ and ragged account.
I would be much the better of help, — oh, for help ! and that ye
would take notice of my case. Your not writing to me maketh
me think ye suppose that I am not to be bemoaned, because he
sendeth comfort; but I have pain in my unthankfulness, and
pain in the feeling of his love, whill I am sick again for real
presence and real possession of Christ ; yet there is no gowked,*
(if I may so speak,) nor fond love in Christ. He casteth me down
sometimes for old faults : and I know that he knoweth well that
sweet comforts are swelling : and, therefore, sorrow must take a
vent to the wind.
My dumb sabbaths are undercoating^ wounds. The condition
of this oppressed Kirk, and my brother's case, (I thank you and
your wife for your kindness to him,) hold my sore smarting, and
keep my wounds bleeding ; but the ground-work standeth sure.
Pray for me.
Grace be with you. Remember me to your wife.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CLVn.
TO MR. THOMAS GARVEN.
Reverend, and Dear Brother, — I bless you for your letter :
it was a shower to the new-mown grass. The Lord hath given
you the tongue of the learned ; be fruitful and humble.
It is possible that ye may come to my case, or the like ; but the
water is neither so deep, nor the stream so strong, as it is called.
I think my fire is not so hot, my water is dry land, my loss rich
loss. Oh," if the walls of my prison be high, wide and large, and
' Favor. 2 Lose heart with on-waiting. 3 Bankrupt-account.
i Gawkish, foolish. s Festering under the skin. * Oh, but.
Rutherford's letters. 235
the place sweet ! No man knoweth it, no man, I say, knoweth
it, my dear brother, so well as he and I : no m'an can put it down
in black and white as my Lord hath sealed it in my heart. My
poor stock is grown since I came to Aberdeen ; and if any had
known the wrong- 1 did, in being jealous of such an honest lover
as Christ, who withheld not his love from me, they would think
the more of it ; but I see, he must be above me in mercy. I will
never strive with him ; to think to recompense him is folly. If I
had as many angels' tongues, as there have fallen of drops of rain
since the creation, or as there are leaves of trees in all the forests
of the earth, or of stars in the Heaven, to praise, yet my Lord
Jesus would ever be behind with ^ me. We will never get our
accounts fitted. A pardon must close the reckoning : for his com-
forts to me in this honorable cause have almost put me beyond
the bounds of modesty : howbeit I will not let every one know
what is betwixt us. Love, love, (I mean Christ's love,) is the
hottest coal that ever I felt. Oh, but the smoke of it be hot !
Cast all the salt sea on it, it will flame ; Hell cannot quench it : many,
many waters will not quench love. Christ is turned over to his
poor prisoner in a mass and globe of love : I wonder that he
should waste so much love upon such a waster as I am ; but he
is no waster, but abundant in mercy ; he hath no niggard's alms,
when he is pleased to give. Oh that I could invite all the nation
to love him ! Free grace is an unknown thing. This world hath
heard but a bare name of Christ, and no more. There are infin-
ite plies in his love, that the saints will never win'^ to unfold : I
would it were better known, and that Christ got more of his own
due than he doth.
Brother, ye have chosen the good part, who have taken part
with Christ : ye will see him win the field, and shall get part of
the spoil when he divideth it. They are but fools who laugh at
us ; for they see but the backside of the moon ; yet our moon-light
is better than their twelve hours'^ sun. We have gotten the New
Heavens, and, as a pledge of that, the Bridegroom's love-ring.
The chiklren of the wedding-chamber have cause to skip, and
leap for joy ; for the marriage-supper is drawing nigh, and we
find the four-hours^ sweet and comfortable. O time, be not slow!
O sun, move speedily, and hasten our banquet ! 0 Bridegroom,
be like a roe, or a young hart upon the mountains ! O Well-
beloved, run fast, that we may once meet !
Brother, I restrain myself, for want of time. Pray for me ; I
hope to remember you. The good-will of Him, who dwelt in the
bush, the tender mercies of God in Christ, enrich you. Grace be
with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
1 That is, would never get all that is due to him from me. 2 Attain.
3 Noon-day. * Slight repast in the afternoon.
236 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CLVIIL
TO BETHAIA AIRD.
Worthy Sister, — Grace, iiicrcy, and peace be unto you — I
know that ye desire news from my prison, and I shall show you
news. At my first entry hither, Christ and I agreed not well
upon it. The Devil made a plea ' in the house, and I laid the
blame upon Christ ; for my heart was fraughted with challenges,^
and I feared that I was an outcast, and that I was but a withered
tree in the vineyard, and but held the sun off the good plants with
my idle shadow, and that, therefore, my Master had given the
evil serpent the fields, to fend him.^ Old guiltiness said, (as wit-
ness,) " All is true :" my apprehensions were with child of faith-
less fears, and unbelief put a seal and amen to all. I thought
myself in a hard case. Some said, I had cause to rejoice, that
Christ had honored me to be a witness for him ; and I said in my
heart, " These are words of men, who see but mine outside, and
cannot tell if I be a false witness or not."
If Christ had in this matter been as wilful and short* as I was,
my faith had gone over the brae,^ and broken its neck. But we
were well met, a hasty fool, and a wise, patient and meek Saviour.
He took no law-advantage of my folly, but waited on till my ill
blood was fallen, and my drumbicd^ and troubled well began to
clear. He was never a whit angry at the fever-ravings of a poor
tempted sinner : but he mercifully forgave, and came, as it well
becometh him, with grace and new comfort to a sinner who de-
served the contrary. And, now he is content to kiss my black
mouth, to put his hand into mine, and to feed me with as many
consolations, as would feed ten hungry souls ! yet I dare not say,
that he is a waster of comforts, for no less would have borne me
up; one grain-weight less would have casten" the balance.
Now, who is like to that royal King, crowned in Zion ! Where
shall I get a seat for royal majesty, to set him on ? If I could set
him as far above the Heaven as thousand thousands of heights
devised by men and angels, I should think him but too low. I
pray you, for God's sake, my dear sister, to help me to praise. His
love hath neither brim nor bottom : his love is like himself, it pas-
seth all natural understanding. I go to fathom it with my arms,
but it is as if a child would take the globe of sea and land in his
two short arms : — blessed and holy is his name ! This must be
his truth which I now suffer for ; for he would not laugh upon a
lie, nor be witness with his comforts to a night-dream.
I entreat for your prayers : and the prayer and blessing of a
prisoner of Christ be upon you. Grace be with you.
., , . , ,^„« Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637. '
1 Dispute. 2 Laden with accusations.
3 That is, had cast him out of the house into the open fields. * Hasty.
5 Bank. 6 Muddied. ' Turned.
Rutherford's letters. 237
LETTER CLIX.
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF KNOCKGRAY.
Dear Brother, — I have not leisure to write to you. Christ's
ways were known to you, long before I, who am but a child, knew
anything of him. What wrong and violence the prelates may, by
God's permission, do unto you, for your trial, I know not; but this
I know, that your ten days' tribulation will end. Contend to the
last breath for Christ. Banishment out of these kingdoms is
determined against me, as I hear. This land dow not ' bear me.
I pray you, to recommend my case and bonds to my brethren, and
sisters, with you. I intrust more of my spiritual comfort to you
and them, that way, my dear brother, than to many in this king-
dom besides. I hope that ye will not be wanting to Christ's
prisoner.
Fear nothing, for I assure you that Alexander Gordon of Knock-
gray, shall win away," and get his soul for a prey : and what can
he then want, that is worth the having ? Your friends are cold,
(as ye write.) and so are those in whom I trusted much. Our
Husband doetli well in breaking our idols in pieces : dry wells send
us to the fountain. My life is not dear to me, so being I may fulfil
my course with joy. I fear that ye must remove, if your new
hireling will not bear your discountenancing of him ; for the Pre-
late is afraid that Christ get you ; and that he hath no will to.
Grace be with you.
Aberdeen, 1637.
Yours, in his sweet Lord and Master, S. R.
LETTER CLX.
TO GRIZZEL FULLERTON.
Dear Sister, — I exhort you in the Lord, to seek your one
thing, Mary's good part, that shall not be taken from you. Set
your heart and soul on the children's inheritance: this clay-idol,
the world, is but for bastards, and ye are his lawfully-begotten
child. Learn the way, (as your dear mother hath gone before
you,) to knock at Christ's door. Many an alms of mercy hath
Christ given to her, and hath abundance behind to give to you.
Ye are the seed of the faithful, and born witliin the Covenant.
Claim your right. I would not exchange Christ Jesus for ten
worlds of glory: I know now, (blessed be my Teacher!) how to
shute^ the lock, and unbolt my Well-beloved's door: — and he
maketh a poor stranger welcome when he comcth to his house. I
am swelled up and satisfied with the love of Christ, that is better
1 Is not able.
2 To win away, to escape, by death, from the evils of this life, 3 Push back.
238 Rutherford's letters.
than wine. It is a fire in my soul : let Hell and the world cast
water on it, they will not mend themselves. I have now gotten
the right gate' of Christ. I recommend him to you above all
things. Come and find^ the smell of his breath ; see if his kisses
be not sweet ; he desireth no better than to be much made of. Be
homely ^ with him, and ye shall be the more welcome : — ye know
not how fain Christ would have all your love. Think not that
this is imaginations and bairns' play, which we make din for. I
would not suffer for it, if it were so. I dare pawn my heaven for
it, that it is the way to glory. Think much of truth, and abhor
these ways devised by men in God's worship.
The grace of Christ be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CLXL
TO PATRICK CARSEN.
Dear, and Loving Friend, — I cannot but, upon the opportu-
nity of a bearer, exhort you to resign the love of yovn* youth to
Christ, and, in this day, while your sun is high, and your youth
serveth j^ou, to seek the Lord and his face ; for there is nothing
out of Heaven so necessary for you as Christ. And ye cannot be
ignorant, that your day will end, and that the night of death shall
call you from the pleasures of this life ; — and a doom given out in
death, standeth forever, as long as God liveth. Youth, ordinarily,
is a post, and ready servant for Satan, to run errands ; for it is a
nest for lust, cursing, drunkenness, blaspheming of God, lying,
pride, and vanity. Oh, that there were such an heart in you, as
to fear the Lord, and to dedicate your soul and body to his service !
When the time comet] i that your eye-strings shall break, and your
face wax pale, and legs and arms tremble, and your breath grow
cold, and your poor soul look out at your prison house of clay, to
be set at liberty ; then a good conscience, and your Lord's favor
shall be worth all the world's glory. Seek it as your garland and
crown. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637,
LETTER CLXn.
TO CARLTON.
Much Honored Sir, — I will not impute your not writing to
me to forgetfulness ; however, I have One above who forgetteth
1 Way. 2 Feel. 3 Famihar.
Rutherford's letters. 239
me not — nay, he groweth in his kindness. It hath pleased his
■holy Majesty to take me from the pulpit, and teach me many
things, in my exile and prison, that were mysteries to me before :
as, 1st, I see his bottomless and boundless love and kindness, and
my jealousies and ravings, which, at my first entry into this fur-
nace, were so foolish and bold, as to say to Christ, who is truth
itself, in his face, "Thou liest." I had well nigh lost my grips. ^
I wondered if it was Christ, or not ; for the mist and smoke of my
perturbed heart made me mistake my Master, Jesus ; my faith was
dim, and hope frozen and cold ; and my love, which caused jeal-
ousies, had some warmness, and heat, and smoke, but no flame at
all ; yet I was looking for some good of Christ's old claim to me.
I thought I had forfeited all my rights ; but the Tempter was too
much upon my counsels, and was still blowing the coal. Alas ! I
knew not well before, how good skill my Intercessor, and Advocate,
Christ, hath of pleading, and of pardoning me such follies. Now
he is returned to my soul with healing under his wings ; and I am
nothing behind*^ with Christ now ; for he hath overpaid me, by his
presence, the pain I was put to by on-waiting, and any little loss
that I sustained by my witnessing against the wrongs done to him.
I trow, it was a pain to my Lord to hide himself any longer : in a
manner, he was challenging^ his own unkindness, and repented
him of his glooms : * and now, what want I on earth, that Christ
can give to a poor prisoner ! Oh, how sweet and lovely is he now !
Alas, that I can get none to help me to lift up my Lord Jesus upon
his throne, above all the earth.
2ndly, I am now brought to some measure of submission, and I
resolve to wait till I see what my Lord .Tesus will do with me. I
dare not now nickname or speak one word against the all-seeing
and over-watching providence of my Lord. I see that providence
runneth not on broken wheels ; but I, like a fool, carved a provi-
dence for mine own ease, to die in my nest, and to sleep still till
my gray hairs, and to lie on the sunny side of the mountain, in
my ministry at Anwoth ; but now I have nothing to say against
a borrowed fire-side, and another man's house, nor Kedar's tents,
where I live, being removed far from my acquaintance, my lovers,
and my friends. I see that God hath the world on his wheels,
and casteth it as a potter doth a vessel on the wheel. I dare not
say that there is any inordinate or irregular motion in Providence.
The Lord hath done it : I will not go to law with Christ, for I
would gain nothing of that.
3rdly, I have learned some greater mortification, and not to
mourn after, or seek to suck the world's dry breasts : nay, my
Lord hath filled me with such dainties, that I am like to a full
banqueter, who is not for common cheer. What have I to do, to
fall down upon my knees, and worship mankind's great idol, the
world ? I have a better God than any clay-god : nay, at present,
as I am now disposed, I care not much to give this world a dis-
^ Hold. 2 That is, in receiving payment.
3 Accusing. * Frowns.
240 Rutherford's letters.
charge of my life-rent of it, for bread and water. I know that it
is not my home, nor my Father's house ; it is but his footstool, the
outer-close of his house, his out-fields' and muir-groutid ;^ let bas-
tards take it. I hojDe never to think myself in its common, for
honor or riches — nay, now, I say to laughter, " Thou art mad-
ness."
4thly, I find it to be most true, that the greatest temptation out
of Hell, is, to live without temptations. If my waters should stand,
they would rot. Faith is the better of the free air, and of the sharp
winter storm in its face. Grace withereth without adversity. The
Devil is but God's master-fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons.
Sthly, I never knew liow weak I was, till now, when he hideth
himself, and when I have him to seek seven times a day. I am a
dry and withered branch, and a piece of a dead carcase, dry bones,
and not able to step over a straw. The thoughts of my old sins
are as the summons of death to me ; and of late my brother's case
hath stricken me to the heart. When my wounds are closing, a
little riflfle^ caiiseth them to bleed afresh: so thin-skinned is my
soul, that I think it is like a tender man's skin, that may touch
nothing. Ye see, how short I would shoot of the prize, if his grace
were not sufficient for me.
Wo is me for the day of Scotland ; wo, wo is me for my Harlot-
mother ; for the decree is gone forth : women of this land shall
call the childless and miscarrying wombs blessed. The anger of
the Lord is gone forth, and shall not return, till he perform the
purpose of his heart against Scotland : yet he shall make Scotland
a new sharp instrument, having teeth to thresh the mountains,
and fan the hills as chat}'.
The prisoner's blessing be upon you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CLXm.
TO THE LADY BUSBIE.
Mistress, — I know that ye are thinking, sometimes, what
Christ is doing in Zion, and that the haters of Zion may get the
bottom of our cup, and the burning coals of our furnace, that we
have been tried in those many years by-gone.'' Oh, that this na-
tion Avould be awakened, to cry mightily unto God, for the setting
up of a new tabernacle to Christ in Scotland. Oh, if this kingdom
knew how worthy Christ were of his room ! His worth was ever
above man's estimation of him.
And for myself I am pained at the heart, that I cannot find my-
self disposed to leave myself, and go wholl}^ into Christ. Alas, that
* The worst parts of an arable farm, which, though tilled from time to time, yet, in
the ancient system of Scottish husbandry, received no manure.
2 Untilkible ground, covered with heath. 3 Ruffle, abrasion. < By-past.
Rutherford's letters. 241
there should be one bit of me out of him, and that we leave too
much liberty and latitude for ourselves, and our own ease, and
credit, and pleasures, and so little room for all-love-worthy Christ !
Oh, what pains and charges it costeth Christ ere he get us ! and
when all is done, we are not worth the having. It is a wonder
that he should seek the like of us : but love overlooketh blackness
and fecklessness ; ' for if it had not been so, Christ would never
have made so fair and blessed a bargain with us, as the covenant
of grace is. I find that in all our sufferings, Christ is but redding
marches,^ that every one of us may say, " Mine, and thine," and
that men may know by their crosses, how weak a bottom nature
is to stand upon in a trial ; that the end which our Lord intend-
eth, in all our sufferings, is to bring grace into court ^ and request
amongst us. I should succumb and come short of Heaven, if I
had no more than my own strength to support me ; and if Christ
should say to me, " Either do or die," it were easy to determine
what should become of me : the choice were easy, for I behooved
to die, if Christ should pass by with straitened bowels ; and who
then would take us up in our straits? I know we may say that
Christ is kindest in his love, when we are at our weakest ; and
that if Christ had not been to the fore,^ in our sad days, the waters
had gone over ovu" soul. His mercy hath a set period, and ap-
pointed a place, how far, and no further, the sea of affliction shall
flow, and where the waves thereof shall be stayed. He prescribeth
how much pain and sorrow, both for weight and measure, we must
have ; ye have, then, good cause to recall your love from all lovers,
and give it to Christ : He, who is afflicted in all your afflictions,
looketh not on you in your sad hours with an insensible heart or
dry eyes. All the Lord's saints may see that it is lost love which
is bestowed upon tliis perishing world. Death and judgment will
make men lament, that ever their miscarrying hearts carried them
to lay and lavish out their love upon false appearances and night-
dreams. Alas! that Christ should fare the worse, because of his
own goodness, in making peace and the Gospel to ride together ;
and that we have never yet weighed the worth of Christ in his or-
dinances ; and that now we are like to be deprived of the well, ere
we have tasted the sweetness of the water : — it may be that with
watery eyes, and a wet face, and wearied feet, we seek Christ, and
shall not find him. Oh, that this land were humbled in time, and
by prayers, cries and humiliation would bring Christ in at the
church-door again, now, when his back is turned towards us, and
he is gone to the threshold, and his one foot, as it were, is out of
the door ! I am sure that his departure is our deserving ; we have
bought it with our iniquities ; for even the Lord's own children are
fallen asleep : and, alas ! professors are made all of shows and
fashions, and are not at pains to recover themselves again. Every
one hath his set measure of faith and holiness, and contenteth
himself with but a stinted measure of godliness, as if that were
1 Worthlessness. 2 Settling boundaries.
3 Favor. " ♦ Extant, existing.
16
242 Rutherford's letters.
enough to brino- him to Heaven. We forget that as our gifts and
light grow, so God's gain, and the interest of his talents, should
grow also ; and that we cannot pay God with the old use and
wont, (as we use to speak,) which we gave him seven years ago ;
for this were to mock the Lord, and to make price with him as we
list. Oh, what difficulty is there in our Christian journey ! and
how often come we short of many thousand things that are
Christ's due ! and we consider not how far our dear Lord is be-
hind with us.
Mistress, I cannot render you thanks, as I would, for your kind-
ness to my brother, an oppressed stranger ; but I remember you
unto the Lord as I am able. I entreat you, to think upon me, his
prisoner, and pray that the Lord would be pleased to give me room
to speak to his people in his name.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXIV.
TO JOHN FLEMING, BAILLIE OF LEITH.
Worthy, and Dearly Beloved in the Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be unto you. — I received your letter. I wish
that I could satisfy your desire, in drawing up, and framing for
you a Christian directory ; but the learned have done it before me,
more judiciously than I can ; especially Mr. Rodgers, Greenham,
and Perkins : notwithstanding, 1 shall show you what I would
have been at, myself; howbeit I came always short of my
purpose.
1. That hours of the day, less or more time, for the word and
prayer, be given to God, not sparing the twelfth hour, or mid-day,
howbeit it should then be the shorter time.
2. In the midst of worldly employments, there should be some
thoughts of sin, death, judgment, and eternity, with, at least, a
word or two of ejaculatory prayer to God.
3. To beware of wandering of heart in private prayers.
4. Not to grudge, howbeit ye come from prayer without sense
of joy : — down-casting, sense of guiltiness, and hunger, are often
best for us.
5. That the Lord's day, from morning to night, be spent always
either in private or public worship.
6. That words be observed, wandering and idle thoughts be
avoided, sudden anger and desire of revenge, even of such as per-
secute the truth, be guarded against ; for we often mix our zeal
with our wild-fire.
7. That known, discovered, and revealed sins, that are against
the conscience, be eschewed, as most dangerous preparatives to
hardness of heart.
Rutherford's letters. 243
8. That in dealing with men, faith and truth in covenants and
trafficking be regarded, that we deal with all men in sincerity ;
that conscience be made of idle and lying words ; and that our
carriage be such, as that they who see it, may speak honorably
of our sweet Master and profession.
9. I have been much challenged, 1. For not referring all to God,
as the last end ; that I do not eat, drink, sleep, journey, speak, and
think for God. 2. That I have not benefited by good company ;
and that I left not some word of conviction, even upon natural and
wicked men, as by reproving swearing in them, or because of being
a silent witness to their loose carriage, and because I intended not
in all companies to do good. 3. That the woes and calamities of
the Kirk, and of particular professors, have not moved me. 4. That
at the reading of the life of David, Paul, and the like, when it
humbled me, I, (coming so far short of their holiness,) labored not
to imitate them, afar off at least, according to the measure of God's
grace. 5. That unrepented sins of youth were not looked to, and
lamented for. 6. That sudden stirrings of pride, hist, revenge, love
of honors, were not resisted and mourned for. 7. That my charity
was cold. 8. That the experiences I had, of God's hearing me in
this and the other particular, being gathered, yet in a new trou-
ble I had always, (once at least,) my faith to seek, as if I were to
begin at A B C again. 9. That I have not more boldly contra-
dicted the enemies, speaking against the truth, either in public
church-meetings, or at tables, or ordinary conference. 10. That
in great troubles, I have received false reports of Christ's love, aud
misbelieved • him in his chastening; whereas the event hath said,
"All was in mercy." 11. Nothing more moveth me, and weight-
eth'' my soul, than that I could never for my heart, in my pros-
perity, so wrestle in prayer with God, nor be so dead to the world,
so hungry and sick of love for Christ, so heavenly-minded, as when
ten stone-weight of a heavy cross was upon me. 12. That the
cross extorted vows of new obedience, which ease hath blown
away, as chaff before the wind. 13. That practice was so short
and narrow, and hght so long and broad. 14. That death hath
not been often meditated upon. 15. That I have not been. care-
ful of gaining others to Christ. 16. That my grace and gifts
bring forth little or no thankfulness.
There are some things, also, whereby I have been helped ; as,
— 1. I have benefited by riding alone a long journey, in giving
that time to prayer, 2. By abstinence, and giving days to God.
3. By praying for others ; for by making an errand to God for
them, I have gotten something for myself 4. I have been really
confirmed in many particulars, that God heareth prayers ; and,
therefore, I used to pray for anything, of how little importance
soever. 5. He enabled me to make no question, that this mocked
way, which is nicknamed, is the only way to Heaven.
Sir, these, and many moe occurrences in your Ufe, should be
1 Not believed aright. » Depresseth.
244 Rutherford's letters.
looked unto : and,^ — 1. Thoughts of atheism should be watched
over, as, If there be a God in Heaven ; which will trouble and
assault the best, at some times. 2. Growth in grace should be
cared for, above all things ; and falling from our first love
mourned for. 3. Conscience made of praying for the enemies,
who are blinded.
Sir, I thank you most kindly for the care of my brother, and
of me also. I hope it is laid up for you, and remembered in
Heaven.
I am still ashamed with Christ's kindness to such a sinner as I
am : he hath left a fire in my heart, that Hell cannot cast water
on, to quench or extinguish it. Help me to praise, and pray for
me ; for ye have a prisoner's blessing and prayers.
Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 15, 1637.
LETTER CLXV.
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF EARLSTON
Much Honored, and Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be unto you — I long to hear from you. I have received
few letters since I came hither : I am in need of a word ; a dry
plant sliould have some watering.
M}^ case betwixt Christ my Lord, and me, standeth between
love and jealousy, faith and suspicion of his love ; — it is a marvel
he keepeth house with me. I make many pleas ' with Christ, but
he maketh as many agreements with me. I think his unchange-
able love hath said, "I defy thee to break me and change me."
If Christ had such changeable and new thoughts of my salva-
tion, as I have of it, I think I should then be at a sad loss. He
humoreth not a fool like me in my unbelief, but rebuketh me,
and fathereth kindness upon me. Christ is rather like the poor
friend and needy prisoner, (begging love,) than I am. I cannot,
for shame, get Christ said nay of my whole love ; for he will not
want his errand for the seeking. God be thanked that my Bride-
groom tireth not of wooing. Honor to him ! he is a wilful suitor
of my soul. But as love is his, pain is mine, that I have nothing
to give him ; his account-book is full of my debts of mercy, kind-
ness, and free love towards me. Oh that I might read with
watery eyes ! Oh that he would give me the interest of interest to
pay back! or rather, my soul's desire is, that he would comprise*
my person, soul and body, love, joy, confidence, fear, sorrow, and
desire, and drive the poind,' and let me be rouped,* and sold to
Christ, and taken home to my Creditor's house and his fireside.
' Quarrels. 2 Attach.
3 Seize upon the impounded property. * Auctioned.
Rutherford's letters. 245
The Lord knoweth that if I could, I would sell myself without
reversion to Christ. O sweet Lord Jesus, make a market, and
overbid all my buyers ! I dare swear, that there is a mystery in
Christ which I never saw ; a mystery of love. Oh, if' he would
lay by the lap of the covering that is over it, and let my green-
ing '^ soul see it ! I would break the door, and be in upon him, to
get my fill of love ; for I am an hungered and famished soul.
Oh, sir, if you, or any other would tell him, how sick my soul is,
dying for want of a hearty draught of Christ's love! Oh, if* I
could dote, (if I may make use of that word in this case,) as much
upon himself as I do upon his love ! It is a pity that Christ him-
self should not rather be ray heart's choice, than Christ's mani-
fested love. It would satisfy me, in some measure, if I had any
bud ^ to give for his love. Shall I offer him my praises ? Alas !
he is more than praises. I give it over to get him exalted accord-
ing to his worth, which is above what can be known.
Yet all this time I am tempting him, to see if there be both love
and anger in him against me. I am pkicked from his flock, (dear
to me,) and from feeding his lambs ; I go, therefore, in sackcloth
as one who hath lost the wife of his youth. Grief and sorrow are
suspicious, and spew out against him the smoke of jealousies ;*
and I say often, " Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.
Tell me, O Lord, read the process against me." But I know that I
cannot answer his allegations ; I shall lose the cause, when it
Cometh to open pleading. Oh, if* I could force my heart to be-
lieve dreams to be dreams ! Yet when Christ giveth my fears the
lie, and saith to me, " Thou art a liar," then I am glad. I resolve
to hope to be quiet, and to lye on the brink, on my side, till the
water fall, and the ford be ridable :^ and howbeit there be pain
upon me, in longing for deliverance that I may speak of him in
the great congregation ; yet I think there is joy in that pain and
on-waiting ; and even rejoice that he putteth me off for a time,
and shifteth me. Oh, if* I could wait on for all eternity, howbeit
I should never get my soul's desire, so being he were glorified ! I
would wish my pain and my ministry could live long to serve him !
for I know that I am a clay vessel, and made for his use. Oh, if *
my very broken sherds could serve to glorify him ! I desire Christ's
grace to be willingly content, that my hell, (excepting his hatred
and displeasure, which I put out of all play, for submission to this
is not called for,) were a preaching of his glory to men and angels
forever and ever ! When all is done, what can I add to him ? or
what can such a clay shadow as I do ? I know that he needeth not
me. I have cause to be grieved, and to melt away in tears, (if I
had grace to do it, — Lord grant it to me !) to see my Well-beloved's
fair face spitted upon by dogs, to see louns ^ pulling the crown off
my royal King's head : to see my Harlot-mother and* my sweet
Father agree so ill, that they are going to skail, '' and give up
I Oh, that. 2 Longing greedily. 3 Bribe.
* Suspicions. 5 May be crossed on horseback.
6 Low, worthless scoundrels. 7 Separate.
246 Rutherford's letters.
Jiouse : — my Lord's palace is now a nest of unclean birds. Oh,
if^ harlot, harlot Scotland would rue upon her provoked Lord;
and pity her good Husband, who is broken with her whorish heart !
but these things are hid from her eyes.
I have heard of late of your new trial by the Bishop of Galloway.
Fear not clay and worms' meat. Let truth and Christ get no
wrong in your hand : it is your gain if Christ be glorified : and
your glory to be Christ's witness. I persuade you, that your suf-
ferings are Christ's advantage and victory ; for he is pleased to
reckon them so. Let me hear from you. Christ is but winning
a clean kirk out of the fire ; he will win this play. He wiU not
be in your common ^ for any charges ye are at in his service. He
is not poor to sit in your debt ; he will repay an hundred fold more,
it may be, even in this life.
The prayers and blessing of Christ's prisoner be with you.
Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXVL
TO MY LADY BOYD
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ, be multiplied upon you.
I have reasoned with your son at large — I rejoice to see him
set his face in the right airth,^ now when the nobles love the
sunny-side of the Gospel best, and are afraid that Christ want
soldiers, and shall not be able to do for himself
Madam, our debts of obligation to Christ are not small ; the
freedom of grace and of salvation is the wonder of men and angels ;
but mercy in our Lord scorneth hire. Ye are bound to lift Clirist
on high, who hath given you eyes to discern the Devil, now com-
ing out in his whites, and the idolatry and apostasy of the time
well washen^ with fair pretences ; but the skin is black, and the
water foul. It were art, I confess, to wash a black devil, and
make him white.
I am in strange ups and downs, and seven times a day I lose
ground. I am put often to swimming, and again my feet are set
on the Rock that is higher than myself He hath now let me see
four things which I never saw before : — 1st, That the supper shall
be great cheer, that is, up in the great hall, with the royal King
of glory, when the four-hours,'^ the standing-drink,'' in this dreary
wilderness is so sweet. When he bloweth a kiss afar off to his
poor, heart-broken mourners in Zion, and sendeth me but his
hearty conimendations till we meet, I am confounded with wonder
to think wliat it shall be when the Fairest among the sons of men
' Oh, that. 2 Under obligation to you.
3 Direction, point of the compass, * Washed.
6 Slight afternoon repast. 6 a draught given to a person at the door.
Rutherford's letters. 247
shall lay a king's sweet, soft cheek to the sinful cheeks of poor
sinners. O, time, time, go swiftly, and hasten that day ! Sweet
Lord Jesus, post ! come flying like a young hart or a roe upon the
mountains of separation. I think that we should tell the hours
carefully, and look often how low the sun is ; for love hath no
ho ; Wt is pained, pained in itself, till it come into grips with^ the
party beloved.
2ndly, I find Christ's absence to be love's sickness and love's
death. The wind that bloweth out of the airth,^ where my Lord
Jesus reigneth, is swect-sraelled, soft, joyful, and heartsome^ to a
soul burnt witli absence. It is a painful battle for a soul sick of
love to figlit with absence and delays. Christ's " Not yet," is a
stounding ^ of all the limbs and liths ^ of the soul. A nod of his
head, when he is under a mask, would be half a pawn : to say,
" Fool, what aileth thee ? he is coming," would be life to a dead
man. I am often in my dumb Sabbaths seeking a new plea^ with
my Lord Jesus — God forgive me — and I care not if there be not
two or three ounce- weight of black wrath in my cup.
3rdly, For the third thing, I have seen my abominable vileness :
if I were well known, there would none in this kingdom ask how
I do. Many take my ten to be a hundred, but I am a deeper
hypocrite, and shallower professor, than every one believeth, God
knoweth I feign not : but I think my reckonings on the one page
written in great letters, and his mercy to such a forlorn and
wretched dyvour^ on the other, to be more than a miracle. If I
could get my finger-ends upon a full assurance, I trow that I would
grip' fast ; but my cup wanteth not gall ; and, upon my part, de-
spair might be almost excused, if every one in this land saw my
inner side ; but I know that I am one of them who have made
great sale, and a free market to free grace. If I could be saved,
as I would fain believe, sure I am that I liave given Christ's blood,
his free grace, and the bowels of his mercy, a large field to work
upon, and Christ hath manifested his art, I dare not say to the
uttermost ; (for he can, if he would, forgive all the devils and
damned reprobates, in respect of the wideness of his mercy ;) but
I say, to an admirable degree.
4thly, I am stricken with fear of unthankfulness. This apostate
Kirk hath played the harlot with many lovers. They are spitting
in the face of my lovely King, and mocking him, and I dow not '°
mend it ; and they are running away from Christ in troops, and
I dow not'" mourn and be grieved for it. I think Christ lieth
like an old forcasten '' castle, forsaken of the inhabitants ; all men
run away now from him. Truth, innocent truth, goeth mourning
and wringing her hands, in saclcclotii and ashes. Wo, wo is me,
for the Virgin-daughter of Scotland ! Wo, wo to the inhabitants
of this land ! for they are gone back with a perpetual backsliding.
1 Self-control. 2 Into the embrace of
3 Direction, point of the compass. * Cheering.
5 A causing of a sudden pang. « Joints. "> Controversy.
8 Bankrupt. * Gripe. i" Am not able. " Neglected.
■248 Rutherford's letters.
These thinjf^s take me so up, that a borrovved bed, another man's
fireside, the wind upon my face, (I being driven from my lovers,
and dear acquaintance, and my poor flock,) find no room in my
sorrow. I have no spare or odd sorrow for these ; only I think
that the sparrows and swallows that build their nests in the kirk
of Anwoth, are blessed birds. Nothing hath given my faith a
harder back-set ' till it crack again, than my closed mouth. But
let me be miserable myself alone, God keep my dear brethren
from it. But still I keep breath, and when my royal, and never,
never-enough praised King returneth to his sinful prisoner, I ride
upon the high places of Jacob, I divide Shechem, I triumph in his
strength. If this kingdom would glorify the Lord in my behalf,
I desire to be weighed in God's even balance in this point, if I
think not my wages paid to the full ; I shall crave no more hire
of Christ.
Madam, pity me in this, and help me to praise him ; for what-
ever I be, the chief of sinners, a devil, and a most guilty devil, yet
it is the apple of Christ's eye, his honor and glory, as the Head of
the Church, that I suffer for now, and that I will go to eternity
with.
I am greatly in love with Mr. M. M. ; I see him stamped with
the image of God. I hope well of your son, my Lord Boyd.
Your Ladyship and your children have a prisoner's prayers.
Grace, grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, May 1, 1637.
LETTER CLXVIL
TO HIS REV., AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. DAVID DICKSON.
My Reverend, and Dear Brother, — I fear that ye have
never known me well. If ye saw my inner side, it is possible that
ye would pity me, but you would hardly give me either love or re-
spect : men mistake me the whole length of the heavens ; my
sins prevail over me, and the terrors of their guiltiness. I am put
often to ask, if Christ and I ever did shake hands together in ear-
nest ; I mean not that my feast-days are quite gone, but I am
made of extremes. I pray God that ye never have the woful and
dreary experience of a closed mouth ; for then ye shall judge the
sparrows, that may sing in the church of Irvine, blessed birds.
But my soul hath been refreshed and watered, when I hear of
your courage and zeal for yom* never-enough praised, praised
Master, in that ye put the men of God, chased out of Ireland, to
work. Oh, if 2 I could confirm you ! I dare say in God's presence,
" That this shall never hasten your suffering, but will be David
Dickson's feast, and speaking joy, that while he had time and leis-
1 Relapse. 2 oh, that.
Rutherford's letters. 249
ure, he put many to work, to lift up Jesus, his sweet Master, high
in the skies." O man of God, go on, go on, be vahant for that
Plant of renown, for that Chief among ten thousands, for that
Prince of the kings of the earth. It is but httle that I know of
God, yet this I dare write, that Christ will be glorified in David
Dickson, howbeit Scotland be not gathered.
I am pained, pained that I have not more to give my sweet
Bridegroom : his comforts to me are not dealt with a niggard's
hand, but I would fain learn not to idolize comfort, sense, joy, and
sweet, felt presence. All these are but creatures, and notliing but
the kingly robe, the gold ring, and the bracelets of the Bride-
groom : the Bridegroom himself is better than all the ornaments
that are about him. Now, I would not so much have these, as
God himself, and to be swallowed up of love to Christ. I see that
in delighting in a communion with Christ, we may make more
gods than one ; but liowever, all was but bairns' play between
Christ and me, till now. If one would have sworn unto me, I
would not have believed what may be found in Christ. I hope
that ye pity my pain that ' much, in my prison, as to help me
yourself, and to cause others help me, a dyvour,2a sinful wretcheii
dyvour,'^ to pay some of my debts of praise to my great King.
Let my God be judge and witness, if my soul would not have
sweet ease and comfort, to have many hearts confirmed in Christ,
and enlarged with his love, and many tongues set on work to set
on high my royal and princely Well-beloved. Oh, that my suffer-
ings could pay tribute to such a king ! I have given over won-
dering at his love ; for Christ hath manifested a piece of art upon
me, that I never revealed to any living ; he hath gotten fair and
rich employment, and sweet sale, and a goodly market for his
honorable calling of showing mercy, on me the chief of sinners.
Every one knoweth not so well as I do, my wofuUy often broken
covenants. My sins against light, working in the very act of sin-
ning, have been met with admirable mercy : but, alas ! he will
get nothing back again, but wretched unthankfulness. I am sure,
that if Christ pity anything in me next to my sin, it is pain of love
for an armful and soulful of himself, in faith, love, and begun fru-
ition. My sorrow is that I cannot get Christ lifted off the dust in
Scotland, and set on high, above all the skies, and Heaven of
heavens.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, May 1, 1637.
LETTER CLXVIII.
TO THE LAIRD^ OF CARLTON.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I received
your letter, and am heartily glad that our Lord hath begun to work
1 So. 2 A bankrupt. 3 A proprietor of lands or houses.
250 Rutherford's letters.
.for the apparent delivery of this oppressed Kirk; — Oh that salva-
tion would come for Zion !
1 am for the present hanging by hope, waiting what my Lord
will do with me, and if it will please my sweet Master to send me
amongst you again, and keep out a hireling from my poor people,
and flock. It were my heaven till I come home, even to spend
this life in gathering in some to Christ. I have still great heavi-
ness for my silence, and my forced standing idle in the market,
when this land hath such a plentiful thick harvest ; but I know
that His judgments, who hath done it, are past finding out. I
have no knowledge to take up the Lord, in all his strange ways,
and passages of deep and unsearchable providences ; for the Lord
is before me, and I am so bemisted that I cannot follow him ; he
is behind me, and following at the heels, and I am not aware of
Iiim ; he is above me, but his glory so dazzleth my twilight of
short knowledge, that I cannot look up to him ; he is upon my
right hand, and I see him not ; he is upon my left iiand, and
within me, and goeth and cometh, and his going and coming are
a dream to me ; he is round about me, and compasseth all my go-
ings, and still I have him to seek ; he is every way higher, and
deeper, and broader than the shallow and ebb ' hand-breadth of
my short and dim light can take up; and, therefore, I would that
my heart could be silent, and sit down in the learnedly-ignorant
wondering at that Lord, whom men and angels cannot compre-
hend. I know that the noon-day light of the highest angels, who
see him face to face, seeth not the borders of his infiniteness.
They apprehend God near-hand,^ but they cannot comprehend
him. And, therefore, it is my happiness to look afar off, and to
come near to the Lord's back parts, and to light my dark candle
at his brightness, and to have leave to sit and content myself with
a traveller's light, without the clear vision of an enjoyer. I would
seek no more till I were in my country, than a little watering and
sprinkling of a withered soul, with some half-out-breakings and
half-out-lookings of the beams, and small ravishing smiles of the
fairest face of a revealed and believed-on Godhead. A little of
God would make my soul bank-full.^ Oh that I had but Christ's
odd off-fallings ; that he would let but the meanest of his love-rays
and love-beams fall from him, so as I might gather and carry them
with me! I would not be ill^ to please with Christ, and veiled
visions of Christ ; neither would I be dainty in seeing and enjoy-
ing of him : a kiss of Christ blown over his shoulder, the parings
and crumbs of glory that fall under his table in Heaven, a shower
like a thin May-mist of his love, would make me green, and sappy,
and joyful, till the summer-sun of an eternal glory break up.^ Oh
that I had anything of Christ ! Oh that I had a sip, or half a
drop, out of the hollow of Christ's hand, of the sweetness and ex-
cellency of that lovely One ! Oh that my Lord Jesus would rue
upon me, and give me but the meanest alms of felt and believed
1 Exceeding shallow. 2 At hand. 3 Full from bank to bank.
* Difficult, hard. s Arise.
Rutherford's letters. 251
salvation ! Oh, how Httle were it for that infinite Fountain of
love and joy, to fill as many thousand thousands of little vessels,
the like of me, as there are minutes of hours since the creation of
God ! I find ' it true, tliat a poor soul finding ^ half a smell of the
Godhead of Christ, hath desires paining and wounding the poor
heart so, with longings to be up at him, that make it sometimes
think, were it not better never to have felt anything of Christ,
than thus to lye dying twenty deaths, under these felt wounds,
for the want of him! "Oh, where is he? O Fairest, where
dwellest thou ? O never-enough admired Godhead, how can clay
win ^ up to thee ? how can creatures of yesterday be able to enjoy
thee !" Oh, what pain is it, that time and sin should be so many
thousand miles betwixt a loved and longed-for Lord, and a dwin-
ing^ and love-sick soul, who would rather than all the world have
lodging, with Christ ! Oh,, let this bit of love of ours, this inch
and half-span length of heavenly longing, meet with thy infinite
love ! Oh, ifs the little I have were swallowed up with the infin-
iteness of that excellency which is in Christ ! Oh that we little
ones were in at the greatest Lord Jesus ! Our wants should soon
be swallowed up with his fulness.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, May 1, 1637.
LETTER CLXIX.
TO ROBERT GORDON, OF KNOCKBREX.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I re-
ceived your letter from Edinburgh.
I would not wish to see another heaven, whill I get mine own
heaven, but a new moon like the light of the sun, and a new sun
like the light of seven days shining upon my poor self, and the
church of Jews and Gentiles, and upon my withered and sun-
burnt Mother, the Church of Scotland, and upon her sister-
churches, England and Leland ; and to have this done, to the
setting on high of our great King : it maketh not, howbeit I were
separate from Christ, and had a sense of ten thousand years' pain
in Hell, if this were. Oh, blessed nobility ! Oh, glorious, re-
nowned gentry ! Oh, blessed were the tribes in this land, to wipe
my Lord Jesus's weeping face, and to take the sackcloth oflT
Christ's loins, and to put his kingly robes upon him ! Oh, if^ the
Almighty would take no less wages of me than my heaven to have
it done ! but my fears are still for wrath once upon Scotland. But
I know that her day will clear np, and that glory shall be upon
the top of the mountains, and joy at the noise of the married wife,
1 Feel. 2 Feeling. ^ Reach.
4 Pining, s oh, that.
Rutherford's letters.
once again. Oh that our Lord would make us to contend, and
plead, and wrestle by prayers and tears, for our Husband's restor-
ing of his forfeited heritage in Scotland.
Dear brotlier, I am for the present in no small battle, betwixt
felt guiltiness, and pining longings and high fevers for my Well-
beloved's love ! Alas ! 1 thiuk that Christ's love playeth the nig-
gard to me, and I know it is not for scarcity of love — there is
enough in him — but my hunger prophesieth of in-holding and
sparingness iii Christ ; for I have but little of him, and little of
his sweetness. It is a dear summer with me ; yet there is such
joy in the eagerness and working of hunger for Christ that I am
often at this, that if I had no other heaven, than a continual hun-
ger for Christ, such a heaven of ever-working hunger, were still a
heaven to me. I am sure that Christ's love cannot be cruel ; it
must be a ruing, a pitying, a melting-hearted love : but suspen-
sion of tliat love, I think half a hell, and the want of it more than
a whole hell. When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my salva-
tion is one of our Saviour's greatest miracles, either in Heaven or
earth : I am sure I may defy any man to show me a greater won-
der. But seeing I have no wares, no hire, no money for Christ,
he must either take me with want, misery, corruption, or then '
want me. Oh, if^ he would be pleased to be compassionate and
pitiful-hearted to my pining fevers of longing for him ; or then
give me a real pawn to keep, out of his own hand, till God send
a meeting betwixt him and me! But I find neither as yet; how-
beit he who is absent be not cruel nor unkind, yet his absence is
cruel and unkind. His love is like itself; his love is his love ;
but the covering and the cloud, the veil and the mask of his love,
is more wise than kind, if I durst speak my apprehensions. I
lead no process now against the suspension and delay of God's
love. I would with all my heart frist^ till a day ten heavens, and
the sweet manifestations of his love. Certainly I think that I
could give Christ much on his word : but my whole pleading is
about intimated and borne-in assurance of his love. Oh, if he
would persuade me of my heart's desire of his love at all, he should
have the term-day of payment at his own making. But I know
that raving imbelief speaketh its pleasure, while it looketh upon
guiltiness and this body of corruption. Oh, how loathsome and
burdensome is it to carry about a dead corpse, this old carrion of
corruption ! Oh how steadable " a thing is a Saviour, to make a
sinner rid of his chains and fetters !
I have now made a new question, whether Qhrist be more to
be loved for giving sanctification or for free justification ? And I
hold that he is more and most to be loved for sanctification. It
is in some respect greater love in him, to sanctify, than to justify ;
for he maketh us most like himself, in his own essential portrait-
ure and image in sanctifying us. Justification doth but make us
happy, which is to be hke angels only ; neither is it such a misery
1 Otherwise. 2 Oh, that. 3 Postpone. * Available.
Rutherford's letters. 253
to lye a condemned man, and under unforgiven guiltiness, as to
serve sin, and Avork the works of the Devil ; and, therefore, I
think sanctification cannot be bought, it is above price. God be
thanked forever, that Christ was a told-down price for sanctifica-
tion. Let a sinner (if possible) lye in hell forever, if he make
him truly holy, and let him lye there burning in love to God, re-
joicing in the Holy Ghost, hanging upon Christ by faith and
hope ; that is heaven in the heart and bottom of Hell.
Alas ! I find a very thin harvest here, and few to be saved.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his lovely and longed-for Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXX.
TOTHE LAIRD OF M O N C R I E F F .
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you —
Although not acquainted, yet at the desire of your worthy sister,
the Lady Leys, and upon the report of your kindness to Christ
and his oppressed truth, I am bold to write to you, earnestly de-
siring you to join with us, (so many as in these bounds profess
Christ,) to wrestle with God, one day of the week, especially the
Wednesday, for mercy to this fallen and decayed Kirk, and to
such as suffer for Christ's name, and for your own necessities, and
the necessities of others, who are by covenant engaged in that
business. For we have no other armor in these evil times but
prayers, now when wrath from the Lord is gone out against this
backsliding land; for ye know we can have no true public fasts,
neither are the true causes of our humiliation ever laid before the
people.
Now, very worthy sir, I am glad in the Lord, that the Lord re-
serveth any of your place, or of note, in this time of common
apostasy, to come forth in public to bear Christ's name before men,
when the great men think Christ a cumbersome neighbor, and
that religion carrieth hazards, trials, and persecutions with it. I
persuade myself that it is your glory and your garland, and shall
be your joy in the day of Christ, and the standing of your house
and seed to inherit the earth, that you truly and sincerely profess
Christ : — neither is our King, whom the Father hath crowned in
Mount Zion, so weak, that he cannot do for himself, and his
own cause. I verily believe that they are blessed who can hold
the crown upon his head, and carry up the train of his robe royal,
and that he shall be victorious and triumph in this land. It
is our part to back our royal King, howbeit there were not six in
all the land to follow him. It is our wisdom now to take up,
and discern the Devil and the Antichrist coming out in their
whites, and the apostasy and idolatry of this land washen ' with
1 Washed.
254 Rutherford's letters.
foul water : — I confess that it is art to wash the Devil till his skia
be white.
For myself, sir, I have bought a plea' against Christ, since I
came hither, in judging my princely Master angry at me, because
I was cast out of the vineyard as a withered tree, my dumb Sab-
baths working me much sorrow : but I see now that sorrow hath
not eyes to read love written upon the cross of Christ ; and, there-
fore, I pass from my rash plea.' Wo, wo is me, that I should
have received a slander of Christ's love to my soul ! And for all
this, my Lord Jesus hath forgiven all, as not wiUing to be heard
with such a fool ; and is content to be, as it were, confined with
me, and to bear me company, and to feast a poor oppressed pris-
oner. And now I write it under my hand, worthy sir, that I
think well and honorably of this cross of Christ. I wonder that
he will take any glory from the like of me. I find when he but
sendeth his hearty commendations to me, and but bloweth a kiss
afar off, I am confounded with wondering what the supper of the
Lamb will be, up in our Father's dining-palace of glory, since the
four-hours "^ in this dismal wilderness, and when in prisons, and
in our sad days a kiss of Christ are so comfortable. Oh, how
sweet and glorious shall our case be, when that fairest among the
sons of men will lay his fair face to our now sinful faces, and
wipe away all tears from our eyes ! O time, time, run swiftly
and hasten this day ! O sweet Lord Jesus, come flying hke a
roe or a young hart! Alas! that we, blind fools, are fallen in
love with moonshine and shadows. How sweet is the wind that
bloweth out of the airth ^ where Christ is ! Every day we may
see some new thing in Christ : his love hath neither brim nor
bottom. Oh, if^ I had help to praise him ! He knoweth that if
my sufferings glorify his name, and encourage others to stand fast
for the honor of our supreme Lawgiver, Christ, my wages then
are paid to the full. Sir, help me to love that never enough
praised Lord. I find now, that the faith of the saints, under suf-
fering for Christ, is fair before the wind, and with full sails car-
ried upon Christ : and I hope to lose nothing in this furnace but
dross ; for Christ can triumph in a weaker man than I am, if there
be any such ; and when all is done, his love paineth me, and
leaveth me under such debt to Christ, as I can neither pay prin-
cipal nor interest. Oh, if^ he would comprise ^ myself, and if I
were sold to him as a bond-man, and that he would take me home
to his house and fireside ; for I have nothing to render to him !
Then, after me, let no man think hard of Christ's sweet cross ;
for I would not exchange my sighs with the painted laughter of
all my adversaries. I desire grace and patience to wait on, and
to lie upon the brink, till the water fill and flow. I know that he
is fast coming.
Sir, ye will excuse my boldness ; and, till it please God that I
• Controversy. 2 Slight afternoon refreshment.
3 Quarter, point of the compass. Oh, that.
5 Attach.
Rutherford's letters. 255
see you, ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ; to whom I
recommend you, and in whom I rest,
Yours, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, May 14, 1G37.
LETTER CLXXI.
TO JOHN CLARK.
Loving Brother, — Hold fast Christ without wavering', and
contend for the faith, because Christ is not easily gotten nor kept.
The lazy professor hath put Heaven, as it were, at the very next
door, and thinketh to fly up to Heaven in his bed, and in a night
dream ; but, truly, that is not so easy a thing as most men be-
lieve ; Christ himself did sweat ere he wan this cit}^, howbeit he
was the free-born Heir. It is Christianity, my heart, to be sincere,
unfeigned, honest, and upright-hearted before God ; and to live
and serve God, suppose there was not one man nor woman in all
the world dwelling beside you, to eye you. Any little grace that
ye have, see that it be sound and true. Ye may put a ditTerence
betwixt you and reprobates, if ye have these marks : — 1. If ye
prize Christ and his truth so as ye will sell all and buy him, and
suffer for it. 2. If the love of Christ keepeth you back from sin-
ning, more than the law, or fear of Hell. 3. If ye be humble,
and deny your own will, wit, credit, ease, honor, the world, and
the vanity and glory of it. 4. Your profession must not be ba--
ren and void of o^ood works. 5. Ye must in all things aim at God's
honor ; ye must eat, drink, sleep, buy, sell, sit, stand, speak, pray,
read, and hear the word, with a heart-purpose that God may be
honored. 6. Ye must show yourself an enemy to sin, and re-
prove the works of darkness, such as drunkenness, swearing, and
lying, albeit the company should hate you for so doing. 7. Keep
in mind the truth of God, that ye heard me teach, and have
nothing to do wnth the corruptions and new guises entered into
the house of God. 8. Make conscience of your calling, in cov-
enants, m buying and selling. 9. Acquaint yourself with daily
praying ; commit all your ways and actions to God, by prayer,
supplication, and thanksgiving ; and count not much of being
mocked ; for Christ Jesus was mocked before you.
Persuade yourself that this is the way of peace and comfort
which I now suffer for. I dare go to death and into eternity with
it, though men may possibly seek another way. Remember me
in your prayers, and the state of this oppressed Church. Grace
be with you.
Your soul's well-wisher, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
256 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CLXXII.
TO CARDONESS, ELDER.
Much Honored Sir, — I long to hear how your soul pros-
perelh. I wonder that ye write not to me ; for the Holy Ghost
beareth me Avitness, that I cannot, I dare not, I dow not'
forget you, nor the souls of those with you, who are redeemed by
the blood of the great Shepherd : ye are in my heart in the night-
watches ; ye are my joy and crown in the day of Christ. O Lord,
bear me witness, if my soul thirsteth for anything out of Heaven,
more than for your salvation : let God lay me in an even balance,
and try me in this.
Love Heaven, let your heart be on it. Up, up, and visit the
new land, and view the fair city, and the white throne, and the
Lamb, the bride's Husband, in the Bridegroom's clothes, sitting on
it. It were time that your soul cast itself, and all your burdens,
upon Christ. I beseech you, by the wounds of your Redeemer,
and by your compearance^ before him, and by the salvation of
your soul, lose no more time ; run fast, for it is late : God hath
sworn by himself, who made the world and time, that time shall be
no more, (Rev. x.) Ye are now upon the very border of the other
life ; your Lord cannot be blamed for not giving you warning. I
have taught the truth of Christ to you, and delivered unto you the
whole counsel of God ; and I have stood before the Lord for you,
and I will yet still stand. Awake, awake to do righteously.
Think not to be eased of the burdens and debts that are on your
house, by oppressing any, or being rigorous to those that are
under you. Remember how I endeavored to walk before you in
this matter, as an example. " Behold, here am I, witness against
me, before the Lord and his Anointed, whose ox or whose ass
have I taken ? Whom have I defrauded ? Whom have I op-
pressed ?" Who knoweth how my soul feedeth upon a good con-
science, when I remember how I spent this body in feeding the
lambs of Christ ?
At my first entry hither, I grant, I took a stomach against my
Lord, because he had casten me over the dyke ^ of the vineyard,
as a dry tree, and would have no more of my service ; my dumb
Sabbaths broke my heart, and I would not be comforted ; but now
He whom my soul loveth is come again, and it pleaseth him to
feast me with the kisses of his love. A king dineth with me, and
his spikenard casteth a sweet smell. The Lord my witness is
above, that I write my heart to you. I never knew, by my nine
years' preaching, so much of Christ's love, as he has taught me in
Aberdeen, by six months' imprisonment. I charge you in Christ's
name to help me to praise ; and show that people and country the
loving-kindness of the Lord to my soul, that so my sufferings may
' Am not able. 2 Appearance. ^ Wall.
Rutherford's letters. 257
someway preach to them when I am silent. He hath made me
to know now, better than before, what it is to be crucified to the
world. I would not now give a drink of cold water for all the world's
kindness. I owe no service to it. I am not the flesh's debtor.
My Lord Jesus hath dawted ' his prisoner, and hath thoughts of
love concerning me. I would not exchange my sighs with the
laughing of adversaries. Sir, I write this to inform you, that ye
may know that it is the truth of Christ I now suffer for, and that
he hath sealed my suffering with the comforts of his Spirit on my
sonl — and know that he putteth not his seal upon blank paper.
Now, sir, I have no comfort earthly, but to know that I have
espoused, and shall present a bride to Christ in that congregation.
The Lord hath given you much, and, therefore, he will require
much of you again. Number your talents, and see what you
have to render back — ye cannot be enough persuaded of the
shortness of your time. I charge you to write to me, and in
the fear of God, to be plain with me, whether or not ye have
made your salvation sure. I am confident, and hope the best ;
but I know that your reckonings with your Judge are many
and deep. Sir, be not beguiled, neglect not your one thing, (Phil,
iii. 13,) your one necessary thing, (Luke x. 42,) the good part
that shall not be taken from you. Look beyond time. Things
here are but moonshine : they have but children's wit, who are
delighted with shadows, and deluded with feathers flying in the
air. Desire your children, in the morning of their life, to begin
and seek t!ie Lord, and to remember their Creator in the days of
their youth ; (Eccles. xii. 1,) to cleanse their way, by taking heed
thereto, according to God's word, Ps. cxix. 9. Youth is a glassy
age. Satan finds a swept chamber, for the most part, in youth-
hood, and a garnished lodging for himself and his train. Let the
Lord have the flower of their age ; the best sacrifice is due to him.
Instruct them in this, that they have a soul, and that this life is
notliing in comparison of eternity. They will have much need
of God's conduct in this world, to guide them by ^ those rocks upon
which most men split ; but far more need when it cometh to the
hour of death, and their compearance^ before Christ. Oh that
there were such a heart in them, to fear the name of the great and
dreadful God, who hath laid up great things for those that love
and fear him ! I pray that God may be their portion. Show
others of my parishioners, that I write to them my best wishes,
and the blessings of their lawful pastor. Say to them from me,
" That I beseech them, by the bowels of Christ, to keep in mind
the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ, which I taught them ; that
so they may lay hold on eternal life, striving together for the faith
of the Gospel, and making sure salvation to themselves. Walk in
love, and do righteousness : seek peace : love one another : wait
for the coming of our Master and Judge. Receive no doctrine
contrary to that which I delivered to you. If ye fall away and
1 Fondled. 2 Past. 3 Appearance.
17
258 Rutherford's letters.
forget it and that Catechism which I taught you, and so forsake
your own mercy, the Lord be judge betwixt you and me. I take
Heaven and earth to witness, that such shall eternally perish :
but if they serve the Lord, great will their reward be, when they
and I shall stand before our Judge. Set forward up the moun-
tain, to meet with God ; climb up, for your Saviour calleth on
you. It may be that God will call you to your rest, when I am
far from you ; but ye have my love, and the desires of my heart,
for your soul's welfare. He that is holy, keep you from falling,
and establish you till his own glorious appearance.
Your affectionate and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637,
LETTER CLXXm.
TO cardoness, younger.
Much Honored Sir, — I long to hear whether or not your soul
be hand-fasted with ^ Christ. Lose your time no longer : flee the fol-
lies of youth : gird up the loins of your mind, and make you ready
for meeting the Lord. I have often summoned you, and now I
summon you again, to compear ^ before your Judge to make a
reckoning of your life. While ye have time, look upon your pa-
pers, and consider your ways. Oh that there were such an heart
in you, as to think what an ill-conscience will be to you, when ye
are upon the border of eternity, and your one foot out of time !
Oh then, ten thousand thousand floods of tears cannot extinguish
these flames, or purchase to you one hour's release from that pain !
Oh, how sweet a day have ye had ! But this is a fair day
that runneth fast away : see how ye have spent it, and consider
the necessity of salvation ; and tell me, in the fear of God, if ye
have made it sure. I am persuaded, that ye have a conscience
that will be speaking somewhat to you. Why will ye die and
destroy yourself? I cliarge you, in Christ's name, to rouse up
your conscience and begin to indent and contract with Christ in
time, while salvation is in your offer. This is the accepted time,
this is the day of salvation. Play the merchant, for ye cannot
expect another market-day when this is done. Therefore, let me
again beseech you, to consider, in this your day, the things that
belong to your peace, before they be hid from your eyes. Dear
brother, fulfil my joy, and begin to seek the Lord while he may
be found : forsake the follies of deceiving and vain youth : lay
hold upon eternal life. Whoring, night-drinking, and the mis-
spending of the Sabbath, and neglecting of prayer in your house,
and refusing of an offered salvation, will burn up your soul with
the terrors of the Almighty, when your awakened conscience shall
flee in your face. Be kind and loving to your wife : make con-
1 Affianced to. 2 To appear in obedience to a legal citation.
Rutherford's letters. 259
science of cherishing her, and not be rigidly austere. Sir, I have
not a tongue to express the glory that is laid up for you, in your
Father's house, if you reform your doings, and frame your heart
to return to the Lord. Ye know that this world is but a shadow,
a short-living creature, under the law of time. Within less than
fifty years, when ye look back to it, ye shall laugh at the evan-
ishing vanities thereof, as feathers flying in the air, and as the
houses of sand within the sea-mark, which the children of men
are building. Give up with courting of this vain world ; seek not
the bastard's movables, but the son's heritage in Heaven. Take
a trial of Christ. Look unto him, and his love will so change you,
that ye shall be taken with him, and never choose to go from
him. I have experience of his sweetness, in this house of my pil-
grimage here. My Witness, who is above, knoweth that I would
not exchange my sighs and tears, with the laughing of the Four-
teen Prelates. There is nothing that will make you a Christian
indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ. "Come and see,"
will speak best to your soul. I would fain hope good of you. Be
not discouraged at broken and spilled ' resolutions ; but to it, and
to it again. Woo about Christ, till ye get your soul espoused as
a chaste virgin to him. Use the means of profiting with your
conscience, pray in your family, and read the word. Remember
how our Lord's day was spent when I was among you ; it will be
a great challenge ^ to you before God, if ye forget the good that
was done within the walls of your house on the Lord's day, and
if ye turn aside after the fashions of this world, and if ye go not
in time to the kirk, to wait on the public worship of God, and if
ye tarry not at it, till all the exercises of religion be ended. Give
God some of your time both morning and evening, and afternoon ;
and in so doing, rejoice the heart of a poor oppressed prisoner.
Rue upon your own soul, and from your heart fear the Lord.
Now He that brought again from the dead the great Shepherd
of his sheep, by the blood of the Eternal Covenant, establish your
heart with his grace, and present you before his presence with joy.
Your affectionate, and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637,
LETTER CLXXIV.
TO MY LORD CRAIGHALL.
My Lord, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I am not only
content, but I exceedingly rejoice, that I find any of the rulers of
this land, and especially your lordship, so to affect Christ and his
truth, as that ye dare, for his name, come to yea and nay with
monarchs in their face. I hope that He who hath enabled you
for that, will give more, if ye show yourself courageous, and, (as
1 Spoiled. 2 Accusation.
260 Rutherford's letters.
his word speaketh,) a man in the streets for the Lord. But I pray
your lordship, give me leave to be plain with you, as one who
loveth both your honor and your soul. I verily believe that there
was never idolatry at Rome, never idolatry condemned in God's
word by the prophets, if religious kneeling before a consecrated
creature, standing in room of Christ crucified, in that very act,
and that for reverence of the elements, (as our Act cleareth,) be
not idolatry. Neither will your intention help, which is not of the
essence of worship ; for then, Aaron, saying " To-morrow shall be
a feast for Jehovah," that is, for the Golden Calf, should not have
been guilty of idolatry ; for he intended only to decline the lash
of the people's fury, not to honor the Calf. Your intention to
honor Christ is nothing, seeing that religious kneeling, by God's
institution, doth necessarily import religious and divine adoration,
suppose that our intention were both dead and sleeping : otherwise
kneeling before the image of God, and directing prayer to God,
were lawful, if our intention go right. My Lord, I cannot in
these bounds dispute ; but if Cambridge and Oxford, and the
learning of Britain, will answer this argument, and the argument
from active scandal, which your lordship seemeth to stand upon, I
will turn a formalist, and call myself an arrant fool, b}^ doing what
I iiave done, in my suffering for this truth. I do nuich reverence
Mr. L.'s learning ; but, my Lord, I will answer what he writeth in
that to pervert you from the truth ; else repute me, beside an hyp-
ocrite, an ass also. I hope ye shall see something upon that sub-
ject, if the Lord permit, that no sophistry in Britain shall answer.
Courtiers' arguments, for the most part, are drawn froin their own
skin, and are not worth a straw for your conscience. A marquis's
or a king's word, when ye stand before Christ's tribunal, shall be
lighter than the wind. The Lord knoweth that I love your true
honor, and the standing of your house ; but I would not that your
honor or house were established upon sand, and hay, and stubble.
But let me, my very d«ar, and worthy Lord, most humbly beseech
you, by the mercies of God, by the consolations of his Spirit, by
the dear blood and wounds of your lovely Redeemer, by the salva-
tion of your soul, by your compearance^ before the awful face of a
sin-revenging and dreadful Judge, not to set in comparison to-
gether your soul's peace, Christ's love, and his kingly honor, now
called in question, with your place, honor, house, or ease, that an
inch of time will make out of the way. I verily believe that
Christ is now begging a testimony of you, and is saying, "And
will ye also leave me?" It is possible that the wind shall not
blow so fair for you all your life, for coming out and appearing
before others to-^ack and countenance Christ, the Fairest among
the sons of men, the Prince of the kings of the earth, (Isa. li. 7,)
" Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their re-
vilings." (Ver. 8,) " For the moth shall eat them up like a gar-
ment, and the worm shall eat them like wool." When the Lord
will begin, he will make an end, and mow down his adversaries ;
I Appearance.
Rutherford's letters. 261
and they shall lie before him like withered hay, and their bloom
be shaken off them. Consider how many thousands in this king-
dom ye shall cause to fall and stumble, if ye go with them ; and
that ye shall be out of the prayers of many who do stand before
the Lord for you and your house ; and, further, when the time of
your accounts cometh, and your one foot shall be within the bor-
der of eternity, and the eye-strings shall break, and the face wax
pale, and the poor soul shall look out at the windows of the house
of clay, longing to be out, and ye shall find yourself arraigned
before the Judge of quick and dead, to answer for your putting to
your hand with the rest, confederated against Christ, to the over-
turning of his Ark, and the loosing of the pins of Christ's taber-
nacle in this land, and shall certainly see yourself mired in a
course of apostasy ; then, then a king's favor and your worm-
eaten honor shall be miserable comforters to you. The Lord hath
enlightened you with the knowledge of his will ; and as the Lord
liveth, they lead you and others to a communion with Great Ba-
bel, the Mother of fornications ; and God said of old, and contin-
ueth to say the same to you, " Come out of her, my people, lest
ye be partakers of her plagues." Will ye, then, go with them,
and set your lip to the Whore's golden cup, and drink of the wine
of the wrath of God Almighty with them ? Oh, poor hungry
honor ! Oh, cursed pleasure ! and, oh, damnable ease ! bought
with the loss of God ! How many will pray for you ! What a
sweet presence shall ye find of Christ under your sufferings, if ye
will lay down your honors and place at the feet of Christ ! — what
a fair recompense of reward ! 1 avouch before the Lord, that I am
now showing you a way how the house of Craighall may stand on
sure pillars : if ye will set it on rotten pillars, ye cruelly wrong
your posterity. Ye have the word of a King for an hundred fold
more in this life, (if it be good for you,) and for life everlasting
also. Make not Christ a liar, in distrusting his promise. Kings
of clay cannot back you when you stand before him : a straw for
them and their hungry heaven, that standeth on this side of time !
a fig for the day's smile of a worm ! Consider who have gone
before you to eternity, and would have given a world for a new
occasion of avouching that truth. It is true they call it not sub-
stantial, and we are made a scorn to those that are at ease, for
suffering these things for it ; but it is not time to judge of our
losses by the morning : stay till the evening, and we will count
with the best of them.
I have found by experience, since the time of my imprisonment,
(my Witness is above,) that Christ is sealing this honorable cause
with another, and a nearer fellowship than ever I knew before ;
and let God weigh me in an even balance in this, if I would ex-
change the cross of Christ or his truth, with the Fourteen Prela-
cies, or what else a king can give. My dear Lord, venture to take
the wind on your face for Christ. I believe that if he should come
from Heaven in his own person, and seek the charters of Craighall
from youj and a dismission of your place, and ye saw his face, ye
262 Rutherford's letters.
would fall down at his feet and say, " Lord Jesus, it is too little
for thee." If any man think it not a truth to die for, I am against
him. I dare go to eternity with it, that this day the honor of our
Lawgiver and King, in the government of his own free kingdom,
(who should pay tribute to no dying king,) is the true state of the
question. My Lord, be ye upon Christ's side of it, and take the
word of a poor prisoner, nay the Lord Jesus be surety for it, that
ye have incomparably made the wisest choice. For my own part,
I have so been in this prison, that I would be half-ashamed to seek
more till I be up at the well-head. Few know in this world the
sweetness of Christ's breath, the excellency of his love, which hath
neither brim nor bottom. The world hath raised a slander upon
the cross of Christ, because they love to go to Heaven by dry land,
and love not sea-storms ; but I write it under my hand, (and would
say more, if possibly a reader would not deem it hypocrisy,) that
my obligation to Christ for the smell of his garments, for his love-
kisses, these thirty weeks, standeth so great, that I should, and I
desire also to choose to suspend my salvation, to have many
tongues loosed in my behalf to praise him ; and, suppose in per-
son I never entered within the gates of the New Jerusalem, yet
so being Christ may be set on high, and I had the liberty to cast
my love and praises forever over the wall to Christ, I would be
silent and content. But oh, he is more than my narrow praises !
O time, time, flee ' swiftly, that our communion with Christ may
be perfected !
I wish that your lordship would urge Mr. L, to give his mind
in the ceremonies ; and be pleased to let me see it as quickly as
can be, and it shall be answered.
To His rich grace I recommend your lordship, and shall re-
main,
Yours, at all respectful obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 8, 1637.
LETTER CLXXV.
TO JOHN LAURIE.
Dear Brother, — I am sorry that ye, or so many in this king-
dom, should expect so much of me, an empty reed. Verily I am
a noughty ^ and poor body ; but if the tinkling of the iron chains
of my Lord Jesus on legs and arms could sound the high praises
of my royal King, whose prisoner I am, oh, how would my joy
run over ! If my Lord would bring edification to one soul by my
bonds, I am satisfied; but I know not what to do to such a
princely and beautiful Well-beloved ; he is far behind with me.^
Little thanks to me, to say to others that his wind bloweth on me,
who am but withered and dry bones ; but, since ye desire me to
' Fly. 2 Being nothing.
3 Hath not received from me nearly all his due.
Rutherford's letters. 263
write to you, either help me to set Christ on high, for his running-
over love, in that the heat of his sweet breath hath melted a fro-
zen heart, else I think that ye do nothing for a prisoner.
I am fully confirmed, that it is the honor of our Lawgiver
which I suffer for now. I am not ashamed to give out letters of
recommendation of Christ's love, to as many as will extol the
Lord Jesus and his cross. If I had not sailed this sea-way to
Heaven, but had taken the land-way, as many do, I should not
have known Christ's sweetness in such a measure ; but the truth
is, let no man thank me, for I caused not Christ's wind to blow
upon me : his love came upon a withered creature, whether I
would or not, (and yet by coming, it procured from me a welcome.)
A heart of iron, and iron doors, will not hold Christ out. I give
him leave to break iron locks and come in, and that is all ; and now
I know not, whetlier pain of love for want of possession, or sor-
row that I cannot thank him, paineth me the most ; but both work
upon me. For the first — Oh that he would come and satisfy the
longing soul, and fill the hungry with these good things ! I know
indeed that my guihiness may be a bar in his way, but he is God,
and ready to forgive. And for the other — Wo, wo is me, that I
cannot find a heart to give back again my unworthy, little love,
for his great sea-full of love to me ! Oh, that he would learn me
this piece of gratitude ! Oh, that I could have leave to look in,
through the hole of the door, to see his face and sing his praises !
or could break up one of his chamber windows, to look in upon
his delighting beauty, till my Lord send more ! — any little com-
munion with him, one of his love-looks, should be my begun
heaven. I know that he is not lordly, neither is the Bridegroom's
love proud, though I be black, and unlovely, and unworthy of
him. I would seek but leave, and withal grace, to spend my love
upon him. I counsel you to think highly of Christ, and of free,
free grace, more than ye did before : for I know that Christ is not
known amongst us. I think that I see more of Christ than ever
I saw ; and yet I see but little of what may be seen. Oh, that
he would draw by' the curtains, and that the King would come
out of his gallery and his palace, that I might see him ! Christ's
love is young glory and young heaven ; it would soften Hell's
pain to be filled with it. What would I refuse to suffer, if I could
get but a draught of love at my heart's desire ? Oh, what price
can be given for him ! Angels cannot weigh him. Oh, his
weight, his worth, his sweetness, his overpassing beauty ! If men
and angels would come and look to that great and princely One,
their ebbness ^ could never take up his depth, their narrowness
could never comprehend his breadth, height, and length. If ten
thousand thousand worlds of angels were created, they might all
tire themselves in wondering at his beauty, and begin again to
wonder of new. Oh, that I could win nigh ^ him, to kiss his feet,
to hear his voice, to feel the smell of his ointments ! But oh,
alas, I have little, little of him ! yet I long for more.
* Aside, 2 Shallowness. 3 Were able to come near.
264 Rutherford's letters.
Remember my bonds, and help me with your prayers ; for I
would not nifTer ' or exchange my sad hours with the joy of my
velvet adversaries. Grace be with you.
• Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 10, 1637.
LETTER CLXXVL
TO CARLTON.
Worthy, and much honored, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. — I received your letter from my brother, to which I now
answer particularly.
I confess two things of jnyself : — 1st, Wo, wo is me, that men
should think there is anything in me ! He is my witness, before
whom I am as crystal, that the secret house-devils, that bear me
too often company, that this sink of corruption which I find
within, make me go with low sails ; and if others saw what I see,
they would look by" me, but not to me.
2ndly, I know that this shower of his free grace behooved to be
on me, otherwise I should have withered. I know, also, that I
have need of a buffeting tempter, that grace may be put to exer-
cise, and I kept low.
Worthy, and dear brother in our Lord Jesus, I write that from
my heart, which ye now read. 1st, I vouch that Christ, and
sweating and sighing under his cross, is sweeter to me by far, than
all the kingdoms in the world could possibly be. 2ndly, if you,
and my dearest acquaintance in Christ, reap any fruit by my suf-
fering, let me be weighed in God's even balance, if my joy be not
fulfilled. What am I to carry the marks of such a great King?
But, howbeit I am a sink and sinful mass, a wretched captive of
sin, my Lord Jesus can hev/ heaven out of worse timber than I am
— if worse can be. 3rdiy, I now rejoice with joy unspeakable and
glorious, that I never purposed to bring Christ or the least hoof,
or hair-breadth of truth, under trysting:^ I desire to have and
keep Christ all alone ; and that he should never rub clothes with
that black-skinned harlot of Rome. I am now fully paid home,
so that nothing aileth me, for the present, but love-sickness for a
real possession of my fairest well-beloved. I would give him my
bond, under my faith and hand, to frist^ Heaven an hundred
years longer, so being he would lay his holy face to my sometimes
wet cheeks. Oh, who would not pity me, to know how fain I
would have the King shaking the tree of life upon me, or letting
me into the well of life with my old dish, that I might be drunken
with the fountain, here, in the house of my pilgrimage ! 1 can-
i Barter. 2 Past.
3 Rutherford rejoiced that he never attempted to compromise the least jot or tittle
of Divine truth, hy subjecting it to any mere human arrangement.
< Tofrist, to postpone enjoyment of a thing, under the hope of ultimately obtaining.
Rutherford's letters. 265
not, nay, I would not, be quit of Christ's love. He hath left the
mark beliind wlTere he gripped. ' He goeth away and leaveth me
and his burning love to wrestle together, and I can scarce win my
meat- of his love, because of absence. My Lord giveth me but
hungry half-kisses, which serve to feed pain, and increase hunger,
but do not satisfy my desires ; his dieting of my soul for this race
maketh me lean. I have gotten the wale and choice^ of Christ's
crosses, even the tythe and the flower of the gold of all crosses, to
bear witness to the truth : and herein find I liberty, joy, access,
life, comfort, love, faith, submission, patience, and resolution to
take dehght in on-waiting ; and withal in my race he hath come
near me, and let me see the gold and crown. What then want I,
but fruition and real enjoyment, which is reserved to my coun-
try?* Let no man think he shall lose at Christ's hands in suf-
fering for him. 4thly, As for these present trials, they are most
dangerous ; for people are stolen off their feet with well washen*
and white-skinned pretences of indifferency : — but it is the power
of the great Antichrist working in this land. Wo, wo, wo be to
apostate Scotland ! There is wrath, and a cup of the red wine of
the wrath of God Almighty in the Lord's hand, that they shall
drink and spue, and fall and not rise again. The star called
wormwood and gall, is fallen into the fountains, and rivers, and
hath made them bitter. The sword of the Lord is furbished
against the idol-shepherds of the land. Women shall bless the
barren womb and miscarrying breast ; all hearts shall be faint,
and all knees shall tremble. An end is coming: the leopard and
the lion shall watch over our cities : houses great and fair shall
be desolate without an inhabitant. The Lord hath said, " Pray
not for this people, for I have taken my peace from them :" yet
the Lord's third part shall come through the fire, as refined gold
for the treasure of the Lord. And the outcasts of Scotland shall
be orathered together aoain, and the wilderness shall blossom as
the flower, and bud, and grow as the rose of Sharon — and great
shall be the glory of the Lord upon Scotland. 5thly, I am here
assaulted with the learned and pregnant wits of this kingdom;
but, all honor be to my Lord, truth but laughs at bemisted*
and blind scribes, and disputers of this world : and God's wisdom
confoundeth them, and Christ triumpheth in his own strong truth,
that speaketh for itself 6thly, I doubt not that my Lord is pre-
parmg me for heavier trials. I am most ready at the good pleas-
ure of my Lord, in the strength of his grace, for anything he
will be pleased to call me to; neither shall the last black-faced
messenger. Death, be holden at the door, when it shall knock. If
my Lord will take honor of the like of me, how glad and joyful
will my soul be ! Let Christ come out with me to a hotter battle
than this, and I will fear no flesh. I know that my Master shall
1 Caught, held fast. 2 Earn my bare livelihood.
3 The very best that could be chosen.
* Reserved lor him in Heaven, (Heb. xi. 16.) 5 Washed.
6 Involved in mist.
266 Rutherford's letters.
win the clay, and that he hath taken the ordering of my suffer-
ings into his own hand. 7thly, As for my dehverance that mis-
carrieth, I am here, by my Lord's grace, to lay my hand on my mouth,
to be silent, and wait on. My Lord Jesus is on his journey for
my deliverance : I will not grudge that he runneth not so fast as
I would have him ; on-waiting till the swelling rivers fall, and till
my Lord arise as a mighty man after strong wine, will be my
best : — I have not yet resisted to blood. 8thly, Oh, how often am
I laid in the dust, and urged by the tempter, (who can ride his
own errands upon our lying apprehensions,) to sin against the
unchangeable love of my Lord ! when I think upon the sparrows
and swallows, that build their nests in the kirk of Anwoth, and
of my dumb Sabbaths, my sorrowful bleared eyes look asquint
upon Christ, and present him as angry. But in this trial — all
honor to our princely and royal King— faith saileth fair before
the wind, with top-sail up, and carrieth the passenger through.
I lay inhibitions upon my thoughts, that they receive no slanders
of my only, only beloved. Let him even say out of his own
mouth, " There is no hope ;" yet I will die in that sweet beguile, '
" It is not so, I shall see the salvation of God." Let me be de-
ceived really, and never win" to dry land ; it is my joy to believe
under the water, and to die with faith in my hand gripping ^
Christ. Let my conceptions of Christ's love go to the grave with
me. and to Hell with me, I may not, I dare not quit them. I hope
to keep Christ's pawn : if he never come to loose it, let him see
to his own promise. I know that presumption, howbeit it be
made of stoutness, will not thus be wilful in heavy trials.
Now my dearest in Christ, the great Messenger of the Cove-
nant, the only wise, and all-sufficient Jehovah, establish you to
the end. I hear that the Lord hath been at your house, and hath
called home your wife to her rest. I know, sir, that ye see the
Lord loosing the pins of your tabernacle, and wooing your love
from this plastered, and over-gilded world, and calling upon you
to be making yourself ready to go to your Father's country, which
shall be a sweet fruit of that visitation. Ye know, " To send the
Comforter," Avas the King's word when he ascended on high ; ye
have claim to, and interest in, that promise.
Remember my love in Christ to your father. Show him that
it is late, and black night with him. His long lying at the water-
side, is that he may look his papers ere he take shipping, and be
at a point for his last answer before his Judge and Lord.
All love, all mercy, all grace, and peace, all multiphed saving
consolations, ah joy and faith in Christ, all stabiUty, and confirm-
ing strength of grace, and the good-will of Him that dwelt in the
bush, be with you.
Your unworthy brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 15, 1637.
1 Delusion. 2 Get. 3 Holding fast.
Rutherford's letters. 267
LETTER CLXXVII.
TO MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Worthy, and Dearest in the Lord, — I ever loved, (since
I knew you,) that little vineyard of the Lord's jilanting in Gallo-
way ; but now much more, since I have heard that he who hath
his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, hath been pleased to
set up a furnace amongst you with the first in this kingdom. He
who maketh old things new, seeing Scotland an old, drossy and
rusted Kirk, is beginning to make a new, clean bride of her, and
to bring a young, chaste wife to himself out of the fire. This fire
shall be quenched as soon as Christ has brought a clean spouse
through the fire ! Therefore, my dearly beloved in the Lord, fear
not a worm. " Fear not worm, Jacob." Christ is in that plea,
and shall win the plea. Charge an unbelieving heart, under
the pain of treason against our great and royal King Jesus, to de-
pendence by faith, and quiet on-waiting on our Lord. Get you
into your chambers, and shut the doors about you. In. in with
speed to your strong hold, ye prisoners of hope. Ye doves, flee
unto Christ's windows till the indignation be over, and the storm
be past. Glorify the Lord in your suflferings, and take his banner
of love, and spread it over you. Others will follow you, if they
see you strong in the Lord. Their courage will take life from
your Christian carriage. Look up and see who is coming ! Lift
up your head, He is coming to save, in garments dyed in blood,
and travelling in the greatness of his strength. I laugh, I smile,
I leap for joy, to see Christ coming to save you so quickly. Oh,
such wide ' steps Christ taketh ! Three or four hills are but a
step to him : he skippeth over the mountains. Christ hath set a
battle betwixt his poor weak saints and his enemies. He waleth^
the weapons for both parties, and saith to the enemies, " Take
you a word of steel, law, authority, parliaments, and kings upon
your side, that is your armor ;" and he saith to his saints, " I
give you a feckless^ tree-sword^ in your hand, and that is suf-
fering, receiving of strokes, spoiling of your goods ; and with
your tree-sword^ ye shall get and gain the victory." Was not
Christ dragged through the ditches of deep distresses and
great straits'? and yet Christ, who is your head, hath won
through 5 with his life, howbeit not with a whole skin. Ye are
Christ's members, and he is drawing his members through the
thorny hedge up to Heaven after him. Christ one day will not
have so much as a pained toe ; but there are great pieces and por-
tions of Christ's mystical body not yet within the gates of the
great high city, the New Jerusalem : and the Dragon will strike
at Christ, so long as there is one bit, or member of Christ's body
1 Long. 2 Selecteth. 3 Feeble.
* Wooden sword. ^ To win through, to struggle through.
268 Rutherford's letters.
out of Heaven. I tell you, Chiist will make new work out of
old for-casten ' Scotland, and gather tlie old broken boards of his
tabernacle, and pin them, and nail them together. Our bills and
supplications are up in Heaven ; Christ hath coffers full of them :
there is mercy on the other side of this his cross ; a good answer
to all our bills is agreed upon.
I must tell you what lovely Jesus, fair Jesus, King Jesus, has
done to my soul. Sometimes he sendeth me out a standing
drink,*^ and whisperetli a word through the wall ; and I am well
content of kindness at the second hand — his bode ^ is ever welcome
to me, be what it will. Bat at other times he will be messenger
himself, and I get the Cup of salvation out of his own hand, (he
drinking to me,) and we cannot rest till we be in other's arms —
and oh, how sweet is a fresh kiss from his holy mouth ! His
breathing that goeth before a kiss upon my poor soul, is sweet,
and hath no fault, but that it is too short. I am careless, and
stand not much on this, howlDeit loins and back, and shoulders,
and head should rive in pieces in stepping up to my Father's
house. I know that my Lord can make long, and broad, and
high, and deep glory to his name, out of this bit feckless^ body —
for Christ looketh not what stuff he maketh glory out of.
My dearly beloved, yc have often refreshed me, but this is put
up in my Master's account ; ye have him debtor for me : but if
ye will do anything for me, (as I know ye will,) now in my ex-
tremity, tell all my dear friends, that a prisoner is fettered and
chainecl in Christ's love, — Lord, never loose the fetters ! — and ye
and they together take my heartiest commendations to my Lord
Jesus, and thank him for a poor friend.
I desire your husband to read this letter. I send him a prison-
er's blessing. I will be obliged to him if he will be willing to
suffer for my dear Master. Suffering is the professor's golden gar-
ment ; there shall be no losses on Christ's side of it. Ye have
been witnesses of much joy betwixt Christ and me at communion-
feasts, the remembrance whereof, (howbeit I be feasted in secret,)
holleth^ my heart; for I am put from the board-head^ and the
Kint'-'s first mess to his by-board,'^ and his broken meat is sweet
unto me. I thank my Lord for borrowed crumbs, no less than
when I was feasted at the communion table at Anwoth and
Kirkcudbright. Pray that I may get one day of Christ in pub-
he, as I have had long since, before my eyes be closed. Oh,
that my Master would take up house again, and lend me the
keys of his wine-cellar again, and God send me borrowed drink
till then !
Remember my love to Christ's kinsmen with you. I pray for
Christ's Father's blessing to them all. Grace be with you : a
prisoner's blessing be with you. I write it, and abide by it, God
will be glorious in Marion Macknaught, when this stormy blast
1 Forsaken, cast away. 2 A slight refreshment, to be taken standing.
3 Offer at a sale * Weak, feeble. ^ pierceth.
6 Head of the table. 7 Side tabic.
Rutherford's letters. 269
shall be over. O woman beloved of God, believe, rejoice, be strong
in the Lord ! Grace is thy portion.
Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 15, 1637.
LETTER CLXXVin.
TO THE LADY CULROSS
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I dare not say
that I wonder that ye have never written to me in my bonds, be-
cause I am not ignorant of the cause ; yet I could not but write
to you. I know not whether joy or heaviness in my soul carrieth
it away : sorrow, without any mixture of sweetness, hath not
often love-thoughts of Ciirist ; but I see that the Devil can insin-
uate himself, and ride his errands upon the thoughts of a poor
distressed prisoner.
I am wo ' that I am making Christ my unfriend,^ by seeking
pleas ^ against him, because I am the first in the kingdom put to
utter silence ; and because I cannot preach my Lord's righteous-
ness in the great congregation. I am, notwithstanding, the less
solicitous how it go, if there be not wrath in my cup. But I know
that I but claw my wounds when my Physician hath forbidden
me : I would believe in the dark upon luck's head, and take my
hazard of Christ's good-will, and rest on this, that in my fever my
Physician is at my bed-side, and that .he sympathizeth with me
when I sigh. My borrowed house, and another man's bed and
fire-side, and other losses, have no room in my sorrow ; a greater
heat to cast out a less fire, is a good remedy for some burning. I
believe, that when Christ draweth blood, he hath skill to cut the
right vein ; and that he hath taken the whole ordering and dis-
posing of my sufferings. Let him tutor me, and tutor my crosses,
as he thinketh good. There is no danger nor hazard in following
such a guide, howbeit he should lead me through Hell, if I could
put faith foremost, and fill the field with a quiet on-waiting, and
believing to see the salvation of God. I know that Christ is not
obliged to let me see both the sides of my cross, and turn it over
and over that I may see all. My faith is richer to live upon
credit, and Christ's borrowed money, than to have much on hand.
Alas ! I have forgotten that faith in times past hath stopped a
leak in my crazed bark, and hath filled my sails with a fair wind.
I see it a work of God that experiences are all lost, when sum-
mons of improbation, to prove our charters of Christ to be counter-
feits, are raised against poor souls in their heavy trials : but let
' Grieved.
2 Not a friend. Tliis word does not denote such a degree of hatred as is implied in
the word " enemy." ^ Quarrels.
270 Rutherford's letters.
me be a sinner, and worse than the chief of sinners, yea, a guilty-
devil, I am sure that my well-beloved is God ; and when I say that
Christ is God, and that my Christ is God, I have said all things, I
can say no more.
I would that I could build as much on this, my Christ is God, as
it would bear ; I might lay all the world upon it. I am sure, that
Christ untried, and untaken-up in the power of his love, kindness,
mercies, goodness, wisdom, long-suffering and greatness, is the
rock that dim-sighted travellers dash their foot against, and so
stumble fearfully. But my wounds are sorest, and pain me most
when I sin against his love and mercy ; and if he would set me
and my conscience by the ears together, and resolve not to red
the plea,' but let us deal it betwixt us,, my spitting upon the fair
face of Christ's love and mercies by my jealousies,*^ unbelief and
doubting would be enough to sink me. Oh, oh, I am convinced, O
Lord, I stand dumb before thee for this, let me be mine own judge
in this, and I take a dreadful doom upon me for it ; for I still
misbelieve,^ though I have seen that my Lord hath made my
cross as if it were all crystal, so as I can see through it Christ's
fair face and Heaven, and that God hath honored a lump of sinful
flesh and blood, the like of me, to be Christ's honorable lord-pris-
oner. I ought to esteem the walls of the thieves' hole, (if I were
shut up in it,) or any stinking dungeon, all hung with tapestry,
and most beautiful, for my Lord Jesus ; and yet I am not so shut
up but that the sun shineth upon my prison, and the fair wide
heaven is the covering of it. But my Lord, in his sweet visits,
hath done more ; for he maketh me to find that he will be a con-
fined prisoner with me. He lyeth down and riseth up with me :
when I sigh he sigheth ; when I weep, he suffereth with me ; and
I confess that here is the blessed issue of my sufferings already
begun, that my heart is filled with hunger and desire to have him
glorified in my sufferings.
Blessed be ye of the Lord, madam, if you would help a poor
dyvour,* and cause others of your acquaintance in Christ to help
me to pay my debt of love, even real praises to Christ my Lord.
Madam, let me charge you in the Lord, as ye shall answer to him,
to help me in this duty, (which he hath tied about my neck, with
a chain of such singular expressions of his loving kindness,) to
set on high Christ, to hold in my honesty at his hands ; for I have
nothing to give to him. Oh, that he would arrest and comprise s
my love and my heart for all ! I am a dyvour, •* who have no
more free goods in the world for Christ, save that; it is both the
whole heritage I have, and all my movables besides. Lord, give
the thirsty man a drink. Oh, to be over the ears in the well !
Oh, to be swattering,'' and swimming over head and ears in ,
Christ's love \ I would not have Christ's love entering into me,
but I would enter into it, and be swallowed up of that love. But
1 Settle which is in the fault. 2 Suspicions.
3 To misbeliere, not to believe aright or fully. ■* Bankrupt,
8 Legally attach for debt.
6 To swaltcr, to flutter and dabble over head in wrater, as ducks do.
Rutherford's letters. 271
I see not myself here ; for I fear I make more of his love than of
himself; whereas himself is far beyond and much better than his
love. Oh, if ' I had my sinful arms filled with that lovely One,
Christ ! IBlessed by my rich Lord Jesus, who sendeth not away
beggars from his house with a toom - dish. He filleth the vessels
of such as will come and seek. We might beg ourselves rich, (if
we were wise,) if we could hold out our withered hands to Christ,
and learn to suit= and seek, ask and knock. I owe my salvation for
Christ's glory, I owe it to Christ ; and desire that my hell, yea, a
new hell, seven times hotter by far than the old Hell, might buy
praises before men and angels to my Lord Jesus ; providing al-
ways that I were free of Christ's hatred and displeasure. What
am I, to be forfeited and sold in soul and body, to have my great
and royal King set on high and extolled above all ? Oh, if ^ I
knew how high to have him set, and all the world far, far beneath
the soles of his feet ! Nay, I deserve not to be the matter of his
praises, far less to be an agent in praising of him. But he can
win * his own glory out of me, and out of worse than I, (if any
such be,) if it please his holy majesty so to do : — he knoweth that
I am not now flattering him.
Madam, let me have your prayers, as ye have the prayers and
blessing of him that is separated from his brethren. Grace, grace
be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 15, 1637.
LETTER CLXXIX.
TO HIS REVEREND, AND LOVING BROTHER, MR. JOHN
NEVAY.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — Grace mercy and peace
be to you. — I received yours of April 11th, as I did another of
March 25th, and a letter for Mr. Andrew Cant.
I am not a little grieved that our Mother-church is running so
quickly to the brothel-house, and that we are hiring lovers, and
giving gifts to the great Mother of fornications. Alas, that our
Husband is like to quit us so shortly ! It were my part, (if I were
able,) when our Husband is departing, to stir up myself to take
hold of him, and keep him in this land ; for 1 know him to be a
sweet second, and a lovely companion to a poor prisoner.
I find that my extremity hath sharpened the edge of his love
and kindness, so that heseemeth to devise new ways of expressing
the sweetness of his love to my soul. Suffering for Christ is the
very element wherein Christ's love liveth, and exerciseth itself, in
casting out flames of fire, and sparks of heat, to warm such a fro-
i Oh, that. • Empty.
3 To urge a request. * Earn.
272 Rutherford's letters.
zen heart as I have ; and if Christ weeping in sackcloth he so
sweet, I cannot find any imaginable thoughts to think what he
will be, when we clay-bodies, (having put off mortality,) shall come
up to the marriage-hall and great palace, and behold the King
clothed in his robes royal, sitting on his throne. I would desire
no more for my heaven beneath the moon, while I am sighing in
this house of clay, than daily renewed feasts of love with Christ,
and liberty now and then to feed my hunger with a kiss of that
fairest face, that is like the sun in his strength at noon-day. I
would willingly subscribe an ample resignation to Christ of the
Fourteen Prelacies of this land, and of all the most delightful
pleasures on earth, and forfeit my part of this clay-god, this earth,
which Adam's foolish children worship, to have no other exercise
than to lye on a love-bed with Christ, and fill this hungered and
famished soul with kissing, embracing, and real enjoying of the
Son of God : and I think that then, I might write to my friends,
that I had found the Golden World, and look out and laugh at the
poor bodies, who are slaying one another for feathers. For verily,,
brother, since I came to this prison, I have conceived a new and
extraordinary opinion of Christ, w'nich I had not before ; for I per-
ceive, we frist^ all our joys to Christ, till he and we be in our own
house above, as married parties, — thinking that there is nothing
of it here to be sought or found, but only hope and fair promises ;
and that Christ will give us nothing here but tears, sadness, and
crosses ; — and that we shall never feel the smell of the flowers of
that high garden of paradise above, till we come there. Nay, but
I find that it is possible to find young glory, and a young green
paradise of joy, even here. I know that Christ's kisses will cast
a more strong and refreshful- smell of incomparable glory and
joy in Heaven, than they do here ; because a drink of the Well of
life up at the well's head, is more sweet and fresh by far, than that
which we get in our borrowed, old, running-out vessels, and our
wooden dishes here ; yet I am now persuaded, it is our folly to
frist ' all till the term-day, seeing abundance of earnest will not
diminish anything of our principal sum. We dream of hunger in
Christ's house, while we are here, although he alloweth feasts to
all the bairns, within God's household : it were good, then, to store
ourselves with moe borrowed kisses of Christ, and with moe bor-
rowed visits, till we enter heirs to our new inheritance, and our
Tutor put us in possession of our own, when we are past minority.
Oh, that all the young heirs would seek more, and a greater, and
a nearer communion with my Lord Tutor, the prime Heir of all,
Christ ! I wish that, for my part, I could send you, and that gen-
tleman who wrote his commendations to me, into the King's inner-
most cellar, and house-of-wine, to be filled with love ; — a drink of
this love is worth the having indeed. We carry ourselves but too
nicely with Christ our Lord ; and our Lord loveth not niceness,
and dryness, and unconess ^ in friends. Since need-force that we
• Postpone. 2 Refreshing. 3 Reserve.
Rutherford's letters. 273
must be in Christ's common, ' then let us be in his common ; ' for
it will be no otherwise.
Now, for my present case in my imprisonment, — deliverance,
(for any appearance that I see,) looketh cold-like.*^ My hope, if it
looked to, or leaned upon men, would wither soon at the root, like
a May-flower ; yet I resolve -to solace myself with on- waiting on
my Lord, and to let my faith swim where it loseth ground. I am
under a necessity either of fainting, (which I hope my Master, of
whom I boast all the day, will avert,) or then^ to lay my faith
upon Omnipotency, and to wink and stick by my grip.* And I
hope that my ship shall ride it out, seeing Christ is willing to
blow his sweet wind in my sails, and mendeth and closeth the
leaks in my ship, and ruleth all. It will be strange if a believing
passenger be casten^ overboard.
As for your master, my Lord and my Lady, I shall be loath to
forget them. I think my prayers, (such as they are,) debt due to
him ; and I shall be far more engaged to his Lordship, if he be
fast for Christ, (as I hope he will,) now when so many of his coat
and quality slip from Christ's back, and leave him to fend for'
himself.
I entreat you to remember my love to that worthy gentleman,
A. C, who saluted me in your letter : I have heard that he is one
of my Master's friends, for the which cause I am tied to him. I
wish that he may more and more fall in love with Christ.
Now for your question : — As far as I rawly conceive, I think
that God is praised two ways ; 1st, By a concionaP profession of
his highness before men, such as is the very hearing of the word,
and receiving of either of the sacraments ; in which acts, by pro-
fession, we give out to men, that he is our God, with whom we
are in covenant, and our Lawgiver. Thus eating and drinking
in the Lord's Supper, is an annunciation and profession before
men, that Christ is our slain Redeemer. Here, because God speak-
eth to us, not we to him, it is not a formal thanksgiving, but an
annunciation, or predication of Christ's death, concional,' not
adorative, neither hath it God for the immediate object, and, there-
fore, no kneeling can be here.
2ndly, There is another praising of God, formal, when we are
either formally blessing God, or speaking liis praises. And this
I take to be twofold : — 1. When we directly and formally direct
praises and thanksgiving to God. This may well be done kneel-
ing, in token of our recognizance of his highness ; yet not so, but
that it may be done standing or sitting, especially seeing joyful
elevation, (which should be in praising,) is not formally signified
by kneeling. 2. When we speak good of God, and declare his
glorious nature and attributes, extolling him before men, to excite
men to conceive highly of him. The former I hold to be worship
every way immediate, else I know not any immediate worship at
1 Under obligation to Christ. 2 Most hopeless. 3 Otherwise.
* To shut my eyes, hold on with might and main, and abide by the consequences.
5 Cast. 6 Shift for. ' Declarative in, or by act of, a public assembly,
18
274 Rutherford's letters.
all : the latter hath God for the subject, not properly the object,
seeing the predication is directed to men immediately, rather than
to God, for here we speak of God by way of praising, rather than
to God. And for my own part, as I am, for the present, minded,
I see not how this can be done kneeling, seeing it is jyradicatio
Dei et Christi, non Imidatio aut henedictio Dei. But observe
that it is formal praising of God, and not merely concional,' as I
distinguished in the first member ; for, in the first member, any
speaking of God, or of his works of creation, providence, and re-
demption, is indirect and concionaP praising of him, and formally
preaching, or an act of teaching, not an act of predication of his
praises ; for there is a difference betwixt the simple relation of the
virtues of a thing, which is formally teaching, and the extolling
of the worth of a thing, by way of commendation, to cause others
to praise with us.
Thus recommending you to God's sweet grace, I rest.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 15, 1637.
LETTER CLXXX.
TO THE MUCH HONORED JOHN GORDON, OF CARDONESS, ELDER.
Much honored, and dearest in my Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. — My soul longeth exceedingly to hear how
matters go betwixt you and Christ ; and whether or not there be
any work of Christ in that parish, that will bide the trial of fire
and water. Let me be weighed of my Lord in a just balance, if
your souls lye not weighty upon me. Ye go to bed and ye rise
with me : thoughts of your soul, (my Dearest in our Lord,) depart
not from me in my sleep ; ye have a great part of my tears, sighs,
supplications, and prayers. Oh, if ^ I could buy your soul's sal-
vation with any suffering whatsoever, and that ye and I might
meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we shall stand before our
Judge ! Oh, my Lord forbid, that I have any hard thing to de-
pone' against you in that day ! Oh, that He who quickeneth the
dead, would give life to my sowing among you ! What joy is
there, (next to Christ,) that standeth on this side of death, which
would comfort me more, than that the souls of that poor people
were in safety, and beyond all hazard of being lost !
Sir, show the people this ; for when I write to you, I think I
write to you all, old and young. Fulfil my joy, and seek the
Lord. Sure I am, that once I discovered my lovely, royal, princely
Lord Jesus to you all. Wo, wo, wo shall be your part of it for
evermore, if the Gospel be not the savor of life unto life to you.
As many sermons as I preached, as many sentences as I uttered,
1 Declarative in, or by act of, a public assembly. 2 Oh, that.
9 To depose, to witness.
Rutherford's letters. 275
as many points of dittay ^ shall they be, when the Lord shall
plead with the world, for the evil of their doings. Believe me, I
find Heaven a city hard to be won. " The righteous shall
scarcely be saved." Oh, what violence of thronging will Heaven
take ! Alas ! I see many deceiving themselves ; for we will all
to Heaven now. Every foul dog with his foul feet will in at the
nearest, to the new and clean Jerusalem. All say they have faith ;
and the greatest part in the world know not, and will not con-
sider, that a slip in the matter of their salvation, is the most piti-
able slip that can be ; and that no loss is comparable to this loss.
Oh then, see that there be not a loose pin in the work of your
salvation ! for ye will not believe how quickly the Judge will come ;
and for yourself, I know that death is waiting, and hovering, and
lingering at God's command, that ye may be prepared. Then ye
had need to stir your time, and to take eternity and death, to your
riper advisement : a wrong step, or a wrong stot,'' in going out of
this life, is, in one property, like the sin against the Holy Ghost,
and can never be forgiven, because ye cannot come back again
through the last water to mourn for it. I know your accounts are
many, and will take telling, and laying, and reckoning betwixt
you and yovu* Lord. Fit your accounts, and order them. Lose
not the last play, whatever ye do, for in that play with death your
precious soul is the prize : for the Lord's sake spill ' not the play,
and lose not such a treasure. Ye know, that out of love which 1
had to your soul, and out of desire which I had to make an
honest accomit of you, I testified my displeasure and disliking of
your ways very often, both in private and public : I am not now
a witness of your doings, but your Judge is always your witness.
I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the salvation of your soul,
by your comforts when your eye-strings shall break, and the face
wax pale, and the soul shall tremble to be out of the lodging of
clay, and by your compearance * before your awful Judge, after
the sight of this letter, to take a new course with your ways, and
now, in the end of your day, make sure of Heaven. Examine
yourself if ye be in good earnest in Christ ; for some, (Heb, vi. 4,
5,) are partakers of the Holy Ghost, and taste of the good word of
God, and of the powers of the life to come, and yet have no part
in Christ at all. Many think they believe, but never tremble ; the
devils are farther on than these, (James ii. 19.) Make sure to
yourself that ye are above ordinary professors. The sixth part of
your span-length and hand-breadth of days is scarcely before you :
— haste, haste, for the tide will not bide.' Put Christ upon all
your accounts and your secrets. Better it is that you give him
your accounts in this life, out of your own hand, than that, after
this life, he take them from you. I never knew so well what sin
was, as since I came to Aberdeen, howbeit I was preaching of it
to you. To feel the smoke of Hell's fire in the throat for half an
1 Indictment. 2 Movement. Stot signifies the rebounding of a ball.
3 Spoil, ruin. * Appearance in obedience to legal citation.
5 Stay, wait.
276 Rutherford's letters.
hour ; to stand before a river of fire and brimstone broader than
the earth ; and to think to be bound hand and foot, and casten
into the midst of it quick, and then to have God locking tbe prison-
door, never to be opened for aU eternity ! Oh how it will shake
a conscience that hath any life in it ! I find the fruits of my
pains to have Christ and that people once fairly met, now meet
my soul in my sad hours : and I rejoice that I gave fair warning
of all the corruptions now entering into Christ's house ; and now
many a sweet, sweet, soft kiss, many perfumed, well-smelled
kisses, and embracements have I received of my royal Master.
He and I have had nuich love together. I have for the present a
sick dwining ' life, with much pain, and much love sickness for
Christ. Ob, what would I give to have a bed made to my wea-
ried soul, in his bosom ! I would frist ^ Heaven for many years,
to have my fill of Jesus in this life, and to have occasion to offer
Christ to my people, and to woo many people to Christ. I cannot
tell you what sweet pain, and delightsome torments are in Christ's
love ; I often challenge ^ time that holdeth us asunder. I profess
to you, I have no rest, I have no ease, whill I be over head and
ears in love's ocean. If Christ's love, (that fountain of delight,)
were laid as open to me as I w^ould wish, oh, how I would drink,
and drink abundantly ! oh, how drunken would this my soul be !
I half call * his absence cruel ; and the mask and veil on Christ's
face a cruel covering, that hideth such a fair face from a sick
soul. I dare not challenge ^ himself, but his absence is a moun-
tain of iron upon my heavy heart. Oh, when shall we meet?
Oh, how long is it to the dawning of the marriage-day ! O sweet
Lord Jesus, take wide ^ steps ; O my Lord, come over mountains
at one stride ! O my Beloved, flee like a roe, or a young hart, on
the mountains of separation.'^ Oh, if he would fold the Heavens
together like an old cloak, and shovel time and days out of the
way, and make ready in haste the Lamb's wife for her Husband !
Since he looked upon me, my heart is not mine own, he hath run
away to Heaven with it. I know it was not for nothing that 1
spake so meikle^ good of Christ to you in public. Oh, if the
Heaven, and the Heaven of heavens were paper, and the sea ink,
and the multitude of mountains pens of brass, and I able to write
that paper, within and without, full of the praises of my fairest,
my dearest, my loveliest, my sweetest, my matchless, and my
most marrowless " and marvellous Well-beloved ! Wo is me, I can-
not set him out to men and angels ! Ob, there are few tongues
to sing lovcrsongs of his incomparable excellency ! What can
I, poor prisoner, do to exalt him ? or what course can I take
to extol my lofty and lovely Lord Jesus ? I am put to my wit's
end, how to get his name made great. Blessed they, who would
help me in this ! How sweet is Christ's back ! Oh, what then
1 Pining.
2 To frist, to postpone, with the confidence, however, of ultimately obtaining pos-
session. 3 To challenge, to call in question. * Almost call.
5 Long. 6 Song of Sol. ii. 17. ' Oh, that.
9 Much. 9 Peerless, unequalled.
Rutherford's letters. 277
is in his face? Those that see his face, how dow • they get their
eye plucked off him again ? Look up to him and love him. Oh,
love and live ! It were life to me if you would read this letter to
that people, and if they did profit by it. Oh, if ^ I could cause
them to die of love for Jesus ! Charge them by the salvation of
their souls, to hang about Christ's neck, and take their fill of his
love, and follow him, as I taught them. Part by no means with
Christ. Hold fast what ye have received. Keep the truth once
delivered. If ye or that people quit it in a hair, or in a hoof, ye
break your conscience in twain ; and who then can mend it, and
cast ' a knot on it ? My dearest in the Lord, stand fast in Christ ;
keep the faith ; contend for Christ ; wrestle for him, and take
men's feud for God's favor : there is no comparison betwixt these.
Oh that the Lord would fulfil my joy, and keep the young bride
that is at Anwoth to Christ,
And now, whoever they be, that have returned to the old vomit
since my departure, I bind upon their back, in my Master's name
and authority, the long-lasting, weighty vengeance, and curse of
God : in my Lord's name I give them a black, unmixed, pure
wrath, which my Master will ratify and make good, when we
stand together before him, except they ffliiously* repent, and turn
to the Lord. And I write to thee, poor mourning and broken-
hearted believer, be thou who thou wilt, of the free salvation.
Christ's sweet balm for thy wounds, O poor humble Believer ;
Christ's kisses for thy watery cheeks : Christ's blood of atonement
for thy guilty soul ; Christ's Heaven for thy poor soul, though
once banished out of Paradise ; and my Master will make good
my word ere long. Oh that people were wise ! Oh that people
were wise! Oh that people would speer out^ Christ, and never
rest whill they find him. Oh, how my soul will mourn in secret,
if my nine years' pained head, and sore ^ breast, and pained back,
and grieved heart, and private and public prayers to God, will all
be for nothing among that people ! Did my Lord Jesus send me
but to summon you before your Judge, and to leave you summons
at your houses? Was I sent as a witness only to gather your
dittays ? "^ Oh, may God forbid ! Often did I tell you of a fan of
God's word to come among you, for the contempt of it. I told
you often of wrath, wrath from the Lord, to come upon Scotland ;
and yet I bide by my Master's word ; it is quickly coming. Desola-
tion for Scotland, because of the quarrel of a broken covenant.
Now, worthy sir, now my dear people, my joy, and my crown
in the Lord, let him be your fear. Seek the Lord, and his face —
save your souls. Doves ! flee to Christ's windows. Pray for me,
and praise for me. The blessing of my God, the prayers and
blessing of a poor prisoner, and your lawful pastor, be upon you.
Your lawful, and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
1 Are able to. 2 Oh, that. 3 Tie.
* In time, seasonably. 5 To speer out, to discover by diligent inquiry,
6 Aching. "> Indictments.
278 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CLXXXL
TO EARLSTON, YOUNGER.
Much Honored, and Well-beloved in the Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. — Your letters give a dash to my lazi-
ness in writing. I must first tell you, that there is not such a
glassy, icy, and slippery piece of way betwixt you and Heaven, as
youth ; and I have experience to say with me here, and to seal
what I assert. The old ashes of the sins of my youth are now
fire of sorrow to me. I have seen the Devil, as it were, dead and
buried, and yet rise again, and be a worse devil than ever he was ;
— therefore, my brotiier, beware of a green young devil, that hath
never been buried. The Devil in his flowers, (I mean the hot,
fiery lusts and passions of youth,) is much to be feared. Better
yoke with' an old gray-haired, withered, dry devil : for in youth he
findeth dry sticks, and dry coals, and a hot hearth-stone ; and how
soon can he with his flint cast fire,^ and with his bellows blow it
up, and fire the house ? ^anctified thoughts, thoughts made con-
science of, and called in, and kept in awe, are green fuel that burn
not, and are a water for Satan's coal. Yet I must tell you, that
the whole saints now triumphant in Heaven, and standing before
the throne, are nothing but Christ's forlorn and beggarly dyvours.^
What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners? but their re-
demption is not only past the seals, but completed ; and yours is
on the wheels, and in doing.
All Christ's good bairns go to Heaven with a broken brow, and
with a crooked leg. Christ hath an advantage of you, and I pray
you to let him have it, he will find employment for his calling in
you. If it were not with you as ye write, grace should find no
sale nor market in you ; but ye must be content to give Christ
somewhat to do. I am glad that he is employed that way. Let
your bleeding soul and your sores be put in the hand of this expert
Physician ; let young and strong corruptions and his free grace be
yoked together, and let Christ and your sins deal it betwixt them.
I shall be loath to put you off your fears, and your sense of dead-
ness — I wish it were more ; — there be some wounds of that nature,
that their bleeding should not be soon stopped. You must take a
house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye be the first
sick man whom he put away uncured, and worse than he found
you. Nay, nay, Christ is honest, and in that is flyting-free^ with
sinners, (John vi. 37,) " And him that cometh unto me I will in no
wise cast out." Take ye that. It cannot be presumption to take
that as your own, when you find that your wounds stound' you.
Presumption is ever whole at the heart, and hath but the truant-
1 To yoke with, to engage in conflict with. 2 To cast fire, to strike fire.
3 Bankrupts.
4 Blameless, and, therefore, entitled to chide or rebuke one that is not so.
5 To stound, suddenly and intermittently to pain.
Rutherford's letters. 279
sickness/ and groaneth only for the fashion t^ faith hath sense of
sickness, and looketh like a friend to the promises ; and looking to
Christ therein is glad to see a known face. Christ is as full a feast
as ye can have to hunger. Nay, Christ, I say, is not a full man's
leavings ; his mercy sendeth always a letter of defiance to all your
sins, if there were ten thousand moe ' of them.
I grant you that it is a hard matter for a poor hungry man to
win his meat' upon hidden Christ: for then, the key of his pan-
try-door, and of the house-of-wine, is a-seeking, and cannot be
had; but hunger must breakthrough iron locks. I bemoan them
not who can make a din, and all the fields ado,^ for a lost Saviour.
Ye must let him hear it, (to say so,) upon both sides of his head,
when he hideth himself; it is not time then to be bird-mouthed^ and
patient. Christ is rare indeed, and a delicacy to a sinner. He is
a miracle, and a world's wonder to a seeking and a weeping sin-
ner ; but yet such a miracle as shall be seen by them, who will
come and see. The seeker and sigher, is at last a singer and en-
joyer — nay, I have seen a dumb man get alms from Christ. He
that can tell his tale, and send such a letter to Heaven as he hath
sent to Aberdeen, it is very like he will come speed'' with Christ :
it bodeth God's mercy to complain heartily for sin. Let wrestling
be with Christ till he sa};-, " How is it, sir, that I cannot be quit
of your bills, and your misleared** cries ?" and then hope for Christ's
blessing, and his blessing is better than ten other blessings. Think
not shame ^ because of your guiltiness : necessity must not blush
to beg : it standeth you hard to be without Christ ; and, therefore,
that which idle on-waiting cannot do, misnurtured '" crying and
knocking will do.
And for doublings, because you are not as you were long since
with your Master, consider three things : 1st, What if Christ had
such tottering thoughts of the bargain of the New Covenant be-
twixt you and him, as you have? 2ndly, Your heart is not the
compass which Christ saileth by. He will give you leave to sing
as you please, but he will not dance to your daft " spring. It is
not referred to you and your thoughts, what Christ will do with
the charters betwixt you and him : your own misbelief hath torn
them ; but he hath the principal in Heaven with himself Your
thoughts are no parts of the New Covenant : dreams change not
Christ. 3rdly, Doubtings are your sins, but they are Christ's
drugs, and ingredients that the Physician maketh use of for the
curing of your pride. Is it not suitable for a beggar to say at
meat. "God reward the winners?"'^ for then he saith that he
knoweth who beareth the charges of the house. It is also meet
1 Feigned sickness. 2 por the sake of appearances.
3 More. * To earn his hvelihood.
5 That is, can fill all the fields with their outcries, in allusion to the bellowings of
cattle when they have lost their mates. s Mealy-mouthed.
7 Succeed, prosper.
8 Ill-bred, unmannerly, implying also the idea of greediness.
9 Be not ashamed. '" Unsubdued. '^ Foolish.
'2 That is, " God reward the givers." The phrase is formed upon the principle laid
down in Acts xx. 35, " It is more blessed to give than to receive."
280 Rutherford's letters.
that ye should know, by experience, that faith is not nature's ill-
gotten bastard, but your Lord's free gift, that lay in the womb of
God's free grace — praised be the Winner.^ I may add a4thly : In
the passing of your bill and your charters, when they went through
the Mediator's great seal, and were concluded, faith's advice was
not sought : faith hath not a vote beside Christ's merits : blood,
blood, dear blood, that came from your Cautioner's^ holy body,
maketh that sure work. The use, then, which ye have of faith
now, (having already closed with Jesus Christ for justification,) is,
to take out a copy of your pardon ; and so ye have peace with
God upon the account of Christ: for, ■ since faith apprehendeth
pardon, but never payeth a penny for it, no marvel that salvation
doth not die and live, ebb or flow, with the working of faith. But
because it is your Lord's honor to believe his mercy, and his fidel-
ity, it is infinite goodness in our Lord, that misbelief^ giveth a dash
to our Lord's glory, and not to our salvation. And so, whoever
want, (yea, howbeit God here bear with the want of what we are
obliged to give him, even the glory of his grace by believing.) yet
a poor covenanted sinner wanteth not ; but if guiltiness were re-
moved, doubtings would find no friend, nor life ; and yet faith is to
believe the removal of guiltiness, in Christ. A reason why ye get
less now (as ye think) than before (as I take it) is, because, at our
first conversion, our Lord putteth the meat in young bairns' mouths
with his own hand : but when we grow to some further perfection,
we must take Heaven by violence, and take by violence from
Christ what we get ; and he can, and doth hold, because he will
have us to draw. Remember now that ye must live upon violent
plucking. Laziness is a greater fault now than long since. We
love always to have the pap put in our mouth.
Now for myself; alas ! I am not the man I go for in this na-
tion; men have not just weights to weigh me in. Oh, but I am
a silly feckless * body, and overgrown with weeds ; corruption is
rank and fat in me. Oh, if^ I were answerable to this holy
cause, and to that honorable Prince's love for whom I now suffer !
If Christ should refer the matter to me, (in his presence I speak
it,) I might think shame ^ to vote my own salvation. I think
Christ might say, " Thinkest tliou not shame « to claim Heaven,
who doest so little for it?" I am very often so, that I know not
whether I sink or swim in the water. I find myself a bag of
light froth. I would bear no weight, (but vanities, and nothings
weigh in Christ's balance,) if my Lord cast not in borrowed weight
and metal, even Christ's righteousness, to weigh for me. The
stock I have is not mine own ; I am but the merchant that traf-
ficketh with other folks' goods : if my creditor, Christ, should take
from me what he hath lent, I should not long keep the cause-
way,^ but Christ hath made it mine and his. I think it man-
i That is, Christ, who has merited or won a right to become the dispenser of the gifts
of God's free grace.
2 Surety's. 3 Weak faith. * Weak, pithless. 5 oh, that.
6 Be ashamed. 7 Appear, without shame or fear, in public.
Rutherford's letters. 281
hood to play the coward, and jouk • in the lee-side of Christ ; and
thus I am not only saved from my enemies, but I obtain the vic-
tory. I am so empty that I think it were an alms-deed in Christ,
if he would win a poor prisoner's blessing for evermore, and fill
me with his love. I complain that when Christ cometh, he com-
eth always to fetch fire ; he is ever in haste, he may not tarry ;
and poor I, (a beggarly dyvour,-) get but a standing visit and a
standing kiss, and but, "How doest thou?" in the by-going.^ I
dare not say he is lordly, because he is made a king now at the
right hand of God ; or is grown miskenning^ and dry to his poor
friends ; (for he cannot make more of his kisses than they are
worth ;) but I think it my happiness to love the love of Christ : and
when he goeth away, the memory of his sweet presence is like a
feast in a dear summer. I have comfort in this, that my soul de-
sireth that every hour of my imprisonment were a company of
heavenly tongues to praise him on my behalf; albeit, my bonds
were prolonged for many hundred years. Oh, that I could be the
man who could procure my Lord's glory to flow like a full sea,
and blow like a mighty wind upon all the four airths^ of Scot-
land, England, and Ireland ! Oh, if" I could write a book of his
praises. O fairest among the sons of men, why stayest thou so
long away ? O heavens, move fast ! O time, run, run, and
hasten the marriage-day ! for love is tormented with delays. O
angels, O seraphims, who stand before him, O blessed spirits who
now see his face, set him on high ! for when ye have worn your
harps in his praises, all is too little, and is nothing, to cast the
smell of the praise of that fair flower, that fragrant rose of Sharon,
through many worlds !
Sir, take my hearty commendations to him, and tell him that
I am sick of love.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXIL
I TO HIS HONORED, AND DEAR BROTHER, ALEXANDER
GORDON, OP KNOCKGRAY.
Dearest, and truly Honored Brother, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. I have seen no letter from you since I came
to Aberdeen : I will not interpret it to be forgetfulness. I am here
in a fair prison : Christ is my sweet and honorable fellow-prisoner,
1 To jouk, to incline the body forward by a sudden motion, in order to avoid a stroke
or injury. 2 Bankrupt. 3 Passing. '
4 So proud as not to condescend to acknowledge acquaintance with,
s Four quarters or cardinal points of the compass. « Oh, that.
282 Rutherford's letters.
and T his sad and joyful lord-prisoner,' (if I may speak so.) I
think this cross becometh me well, and is suitable to me in respect
of my duty to suffer for Christ ; howbeit not in regard of my de-
serving to be thus honored. However it be, I see that Christ is
strong, even lying in the dust, in prison, and in banishment.
Losses and disgraces are the wheels of Christ's triumphing chariot.
In the sufferings of his own saints, as he intendeth their good, so
he intendeth his own glory, and that is the butt his arrows shoot -^
at : and Christ shooteth not at the rovers,*^ he hitteth what he
purposeth to hit ; therefore, he doth make his own feckless ^ and
weak nothings, and those who are the contempt of men, " a new
sharp threshing instrument, having teeth, to thresh the moun-
tains, and beat them small, and to make the hills as chaff, and to
fan them," (Isaiah xh. 15, 16.) What harder stuff, or harder
grain for threshing out, than high and rocky mountains ? but the
saints are God's threshing instruments to beat them all into chaff.
Are we not God's leeni ^ vessels ? and yet when they cast us over
an house we are not broken into sherds. We creep in under our
Lord's wings in the great shower, and the water cannot come
through those wings. It is folly then for men to say, " This is
not Christ's plea, he will lose the wed-fee f men are like to be-
guile him" — that were indeed a strange play. Nay, I dare pledge
my soul, and lay it in pawn on Christ's side of it, and be half-
tinner,^ half-winner with my Master ! Let fools laugh the fool's
laughter, and scorn Christ, and bid the weeping captives in Baby-
lon " sing us one of the songs of Zion, play a spring to cheer up
your sad-hearted God." We may sing upon luck's-head'^ before-
hand even in our winter-storm, in the expectation of a summer
sun, at the turn of the year. No created powers in Hell, or out
of Hell, can mar the music of our Lord Jesus, nor spill ^ our song
of joy. Let us then be glad, and rejoice in the salvation of our
Lord : for faith had never yet cause to have wet cheeks and hing-
ing ^ down brows, or to droop or die. What can ail faith, seeing
Christ suffereth himself, (with reverence to him be it spoken,) to
be commanded by it, and Christ commandeth all things ? Faith
may dance, because Christ singeth ; and we may come into the
choir, and lift our hoarse and rough voices, and chirp, and sing,
and shout for joy with our Lord Jesus. We see oxen go to the
shambles leaping and startling ; '" we see God's fed oxen, pre-
pared for the day of slaughter, go dancing and singing down to
the black chambers of Hell ; and why should we go to Heaven
weeping, as if we were hke to fall down through the earth for
sorrow ? If God were dead, (if I may speak so, with reverence
of Him who liveth forever and ever,) and Christ buried, and rot-
ten among the worms, we might have cause to look like dead
folks : but, "the Lord liveth, and blessed be the Rock of our sal-
' That is, treated by Christ with the greatest kindness and honor. 2 At random.
3 Unsubstantial, feeble. * Earthen. « Bet, wager. * Half loser.
' That is, upon certainty of success. 8 Ruin, spoil.
9 Hanging. lo Running about in an excited, gladsome manner.
RUTHERFORD S LETTERS.
283
vation." (Psalm xviii. 46.) None have right to joy but we ; for joy
is sown for us, and an ill summer or harvest will not spill ^ the crop.
The children of this world have much robbed joy that is not well-
come.2 It is no good sport they laugh at : they steal joy, as it
were, from God ; for he commandeth them to mourn and howl.
Then let us claim our leel-come^ and lawfully conquessed ^ joy.
My dear brother, I cannot but speak what I have felt ; seeing
my Lord Jesus hath broken a box of spikenard upon the head of
his poor prisoner, and it is hard to hide a sweet smell ; it is a pain
to smother Christ's love ; it will be out whether we will or not.
If we did but speak according to the matter, a cross for Christ
should have another name ; yea, a cross, especially when he
Cometh with his arms full of joys, is the happiest hard tree that
ever was laid upon my weak shoulder. Christ and his cross to-
gether are sweet company, and a blessed couple. My prison is
my palace, my sorrow is with child of joy, my losses are rich
losses, my pain easy pain, my heavy days are holy and happy
days. I may tell a new tale of Christ to my friends. Oh, if ^ I
could make a love song of him, and could commend Christ, and
tune his praises aright ! Oh, if ^ I could set all tongues in Great
Britain and Ireland to work, to help me to sing a new song of my
Well-beloved ! Oh, if* I could be a bridge over a water for my
Lord Jesus to walk upon, and keep his feet dry ! Oh, if ^ my poor
bit heaven could go betwixt my Lord and blasphemy, and dis-
honor ! (upon condition he loved me.) Oh, that my heart could
say this word, and abide by it forever ! Is it not great art, and
incomparable wisdom in my Lord, who can bring forth such fair
apples out of this crabbed tree of the cross ? Nay, my Father's
never-enough admired providence can make a fair feast out of a
black devil. Nothing can come wrong to my Lord in his sweet
working. I would even fall sound asleep in Christ's arms, and
my sinful head on his holy breast, while he kisseth me ; were it
not that often the wind turneth to the north, and whiles my sweet
Lord Jesus is so, that he will neither give nor take, borrow nor
lend with me. I complain that he is not social ; I half call him
proud and lordly of his company, and nice of his looks ; which
yet is not true. It would content me to give, albeit he should not
take. I should be content to want his kisses at such times, pro-
viding he would be content to come near-hand, and take my
wersh,3 dry, and feckless*^ kisses. But at that time he will not be
entreated, but let a poor soul stand still and knock, and never let-
on him ' that he heareth ; and then the old leavings and broken
meat, and dry sighs, are greater cheer than I can tell. All I have
then is, that howbeit the law and wrath have gotten a decreet^
against me, I can yet lippen ^ that meikle " good in Christ, as to
1 Ruin, spoil. 2 Lawfully obtained.
3 Obtained by purchase or industry, in opposition to obtained by inheritance.
* Oh, that. 5 Insipid. ^ Feeble, pithless.
' Seem to take notice. ^ Sentence of a court.
9 To lippen in, to put confidence in. i" Much.
284 Rutherford's letters.
get a suspension,' and to bring ray cause in reasoning again be-
fore my Well-beloved. I desire but to be heard, and at last he
is content to come and agree the matter with a fool, and forgive
freely, because he is God. Oh, if ^ men would glorify him, and
taste of Christ's sweetness !
Brother, ye have need to be busy with Christ for this whorish
Kirk. I fear lest Christ cast water upon Scotland's coal ; nay, I
know that Christ and his wife will be heard, he will plead for the
broken Covenant. Arm you against that time.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXIIL
TO MR. J . R.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. — Upon
the report which I hear of you, (without any further acquaint-
ance, except our straitest bonds in our Lord Jesus,) I thought
good to write unto you, hearing of your danger to be thrust out
of the Lord's house for his name's sake : therefore, my earnest and
humble desire to God is, that ye may be strengthened in the grace
of God, and, by the power of his might, may go on for Christ, not
standing in awe of a worm that shall die. I hope that ye will not
put your baud to the ark to give it a wrong totch,^ and to over-
turn it, as many now do, when the archers are shooting sore at
Joseph, whose bow shall abide in its strength. We owe to our
royal King and princely Master a testimony. Oh, how blessed
are they who can ward a blow off Christ, and his borne-down
truth ! Men think Christ a gone man^ now, and that he shall
never get up his head again ; and they believe that his court ^ is
failed, because he suffereth men to break their spears and swords
upon him, and the enemies to plough Zion, and make long and
deep their furrows on her back. But it would not be so, if the
Lord had not a sowing for his ploughing. What can he do, but
melt an old drossy Kirk, that he may bring out a new bride out
of the fire again ! I think that Christ is just now repairing his
house, and exchanging his old vessels with new vessels, and is
going through this land, and taking up an inventory and a roll
of so many of Levi's sons, and good professors, that he may make
them new work for the Second Temple ; and whatsoever shall be
found not to be for the work shall be casten« over the wall. When
the house shall be builded, he will lay by ^ his hammers, as hav-
1 Decree of a court suspending the execution of a sentence. ^ Oh, that.
3 A sudden push, so as to make the object pushed at move.
4 A man utterly overcome or conquered. ^ Favor in court.
6 Thrown. ' Aside.
Rutherford's letters. 285
ing no more to do with them. It is possible that he may do worse
to them than lay them by : and I think the vengeance of the
Lord, and the vengeance of his temple, shall be upon them.
I desire no more than to keep weight when I am past the fire :
and I can now, in some weak measure, give Christ a testimonial *
of a lovely and loving companion under suffering for him. I saw
him before, but afar off! His beauty to my eye-sight groweth.
A fig. a straw for ten worlds' plastered glory, and for childish shad-
ows, the idol of clay, (this god, the World,) that fools fight for. If
I had a lease of Christ of my own dating, (for whoever once cometh
nigh hand "^ and taketh a hearty look of Christ's inner side, shall
never wring nor wrestle themselves out of his love-grips ^ again,)
I would rest contentedly in my prison : yea, in a prison without
light of sun or candle, providing Christ and I had a love-bed, not
of mine, but of Christ's own making ; that we might lie together
among the lilies till the day break, and the shadows fiee away.
Who knoweth how sweet a drink of Christ's love is ? Oh, but to
live on Christ's love is a king's hfe ! The worst thing of Christ,
even that which seemeth to be the refuse of Christ, his hard cross,
his black cross, is white and fair ; and the cross receiveth a beau-
tiful lustre, and a perfumed smell from Jesus : — my dear brother,
scaur ^ not at it.
While ye have time to stand upon the watch-tower, and speak,
contend with this land, plead with your Harlot-mother, who hath
been a treacherous half-marrow « to her Husband, Jesus. For I
would think liberty, to preach one day, the root and top of my
desires ; and would seek no n^ore of the blessings that are to be
had on this side of time, till I be over the water, than to spend
this, my crazy clay-house, in his service and saving of souls. But
I hold my peace, because he hath done it. My shallow and ebb «
thoughts are not the compass which Christ saileth by. I leave
his ways to himself, for they are far, far above me : only I would
contend w4th Christ for his lov£, and be bold to make a plea ^ with
Jesus, my Lord, for a heart-fill of his love ; for there is no more
left to me. What standeth beyond the far end^ of my sufferings,
and wdiat shall be the event, he knoweth ; and I hope, to my joy,
%vill make me know, when God will unfold his decrees concerning
me ; for there are windings, and tos and fros in his ways, which
blind bodies like us cannot see.
Thus much for farther acquaintance : so recommending you,
and what is before you, to the grace of God, I rest.
Your very loving brother.
In his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
1 Certificate. 2 Near. 3 Love-embrace.
4 Boggle. 5 Married partner. 6 Exceedingly shallow.
7 Controversy. ^ Farther end.
286 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CLXXXIV.
TO MR. WILLIAM DALGLEISH.
Reverend, and Well-beloved Brother, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be unto you. — I have heard somewhat of your trials in
Galloway. I bless the Lord, who hath begun first in that corner,
to make you a new kirk to himself. Christ hath the less ado be-
hind, when he had refined you.
Let me entreat you, my dearly beloved, to be fast to Christ.
My Witness is above, my dearest brother, that ye have added
much joy to me in my bonds, when I hear that ye grow in the
grace, and zeal of God for your Master. Our ministry, whether
by preaching or suffering, will cast a smell through the world both
of Heaven and Hell, (2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.) I persuade you, my dear
brother, that there is nothing out of Heaven, next to Christ, dearer
to me than my ministry ; and the worth of it, in my estimation,
is swelled, and paineth me exceedingly : yet I am content, for the
honor of my Lord, to surrender it back again to the Lord of the
vineyard ; let him do with it, and me both, what he thinketh good ;
— I think myself too little for him.
And let me speak to you, how kind a fellow-prisoner is Christ
to me ! Believe me, this kind of cross, (that would not go by ' my
door, but would needs visit me,) is still the longer the more wel-
come to me. It is true, my silent Sabbaths have been, and are,
glassy ice, whereon my faith can scarce hold its feet, and I am
often blown on my back, and off" my feet, with a storm of doubting ;
yet truly, my bonds all this time cast a mighty and rank smell of
high and deep love in Christ. I cannot, indeed, see through my
cross to the far end f yet I believe I am in Christ's books, and in his
decree (not yet unfolded to me) a man triumphing, dancing, and
singing, on the other side of the Red Sea, and laughing and prais-
ing the Lamb, over beyond time, sorrow, deprivation, prelates' in-
dignation, losses, want of friends, and death. Heaven is not a
fowl flying in the air, (as men use to speak of things that are un-
certain :) nay, it is well-paid for, Christ's cornprisement^ lieth on
glory, for all the mourners in Zion and shall never be loosed.
Let us be glad, and rejoice, that we have blood, losses and wounds,
to show our Master and Captain at his appearance, and what we
suffered for his cause.
Wo is me, my dear brother, that I say often, I am but dry
bones, which my Lord will not bring out of the grave again ; and
that my faithless fears say, " Oh, I am a dry tree, that can bear
no fruit ; I am a useless body, who can beget no children to the
Lord in his house !" Hopes of deliverance look cold and uncertain,
and afar off", as if I had done with it. It is much for Christ (if I
1 Past. s Farther end.
3 Legal attachment for debt.
Rutherford's letters. 287
may say so) to get law-borrows ^ of my sorrow, and of my quar-
relous heart. Christ's love playeth me fair play. I am not
wronged at all ; but there is a tricking and false heart within me,
that still playeth Christ foul play. I am a cumbersome neighbor
to Christ ; it is a wonder, that he dwelleth beside the like of me :
yet I often get the advantage of the hill above my temptations ;
and then I despise temptation, even Hell itself, and the stink of
it, and the instruments of it, and am proud of my honorable Mas-
ter ; and I resolve, whether contrary winds will or not, to fetch
Christ's harbor ; and I think a wilful and stiff contention with my
Lord Jesus for his love very lawful. It is sometimes hard to me
to win my meat ^ upon Christ's love, because my faith is sick, and
my hope withereth. and my eyes wax dim ; and unkind and com-
fort-eclipsing clouds go over the fair and bright Sun, Jesus ; and
then, when I and temptation tryste^ the matter together, we spilH
all through unbelief Sweet, sweet for evermore would my life
be, if I could keep faith in exercise ! but I see that my fire cannot
always cast light ; I have even a poor man's hard world when he
goeth away. But surely, since my entry hither, many a time hath
my fair sun shined without a cloud ; hot and burning hath Christ's
love been to me. I have no vent to the expression of jt ; I must
be content with stolen and smothered desires of Christ's glory.
Oh, how far is his love behind the hand" with me! I am just
like a man who hath nothing to pay his thousands of debt : all
that can be gotten of him, is to seize upon his person. Except
Christ would seize upon myself, and make the readiest payment
that can be of my heart and love to himself, I have no other thing
to give him. If my sufferings could do beholders good, and edify
bis Kirk, and proclaim the incomparable worth of Christ's love to
the world, oh, then, would my soul be overjoyed, and my sad
heart be cheered and calmed !
Dear brother, I cannot tell what is become of my labors among
that people ! If all that my Lord builded by me be casten ^ down,
and the bottom be fallen out of the profession of the parish, and
none stand by Christ, whose love I once preached as clearly and
plainly as I could, (though far below its worth and excellence,)
to that people ; if so, how can I bear it ! And if another make a
foul harvest, where I have made a painful and honest sowing, it
will not soon digest with me. But I know that his ways pass
finding out. Yet my Witness, both within me and above me,
knoweth, and my pained breast upon the Lord's day at night, my
desire to have had Christ awful, and amiable, and sweet to that
people, is now my joy. It was my desire and aim to make Christ
and them one, and, if I see my hopes die in the bud, ere they
bloom ' a little, and come to no fruit, I die with grief O my God,
1 Legal security which a man is obliged to give to one who swears the peace
against him, that he will not injure him in person or property.
2 Earn my living.
3 To trysU a matter, to bring it for adjustment before an appointed meeting.
* Spoil. s That is, in receiving its due return. 8 Thrown. 7 Blossom.
288 Rutherford's letters.
seek not an account of the violence done to me by my brethren,
whose salvation I love and desire : I pray that they and I be not
heard as contrary parties in the day of our compearance ' before
our Judge, in that process, led by them against my ministry,
which I received from Christ. I knoAV that a little inch, and less
than the third part of this span-length and hand-breadth of time,
which is posting away, will put me without the stroke, and above
the reach of either brethren or foes : and it is a short-lasting in-
jury done to me, and to my pains in that part of my Lord's vine-
yard. Oh, how silly ^ an advantage, is my deprivation to men,
seeing that my Lord Jesus hath many ways to recover his own
losses, and is irresistible to compass his own glorious ends, that his
lily may grow amongst thorns, and his little Kingdom exalt it-
self, even under the swords and spears of contrary powers !
But, my dear brother, go on in the strength of his rich grace
whom ye serve. Stand fast for Christ. Deliver the Gospel off
your hand, and your ministry to your Master, with a clean and
undefiled conscience. Loose not a pin of Christ's tabernacle. Do
not so much as pick with your nail at one board or border of the
Ark, Have no part or dealing, upon any terms, in a hoof ^ in a
closed window,^ or in a bowing of your knee, in casting down of
the temple. But be a mourning and speaking witness against
them who now ruin Zion. Our Master will be on us all in a clap,
ere ever we wit. That day will discover all our whites and our
blacks, concerning this controversy of poor oppressed Zion. Let
us make our part of it good, that it may be able to abide the fire,
when hay and stubble shall be burned to ashes. Nothing, noth-
ing, I say nothing, but sound sanctification can abide the Lord's
fan. I stand to my testimony, that I preached often of Scotland
— Lamentation, mourning, and wo abideth thee, O Scotland !
O Scotland, the fearful quarrel of a broken covenant standeth
good with thy Lord !
Now, remember my Lord to all my friends, and to my parish-
ioners, as if I named each of them particularly. I recommend
you and God's people, committed by Christ to your trust, to the
rich grace of our all-sufficient Lord. Remember my bonds. Praise
my Lord, who beareth me up in my sufferings. As ye find oc-
casion, according to the wisdom given you, show our acquaintance
what the Lord hath done to my soul. This I seek not, verily, to
hunt my own praise, but that my sweetest and dearest Blaster
may be magnified in my sufferings. I rest,
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
1 Appearance. 2 Contemptible, pitiful.
3 That is, in the smallest particular. See Exod. x. 26, and Dan. vi. 10.
Rutherford's letters. 289
LETTER CLXXXV.
TO MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Dearly Beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ, — Grace, mer-
cy, and peace, be to you. — Few know the heart of a stranger and
prisoner. I am in the hands of mine enemies. I would that
honest, and lawful means were essayed for bringing- me home to
ray charge, now when Mr. A. R. and Mr. H. R. are restored. It
concerneth you of Galloway most, to use supplications and ad-
dresses for this purpose, and try, if by fair means I can be brought
back again. As for liberty, without I be restored to my flock, it
is little to me ; for my silence is my greatest prison. However it
be, I wait for the Lord ; I hope not to rot in my sufferings : — Lord,
give me submission to wait on. My heart is sad that my days
flee away, and I do no service to my Lord in his house, now
when his harvest, and the souls of perishing people require it ; but
his ways are not Hke my ways, neither can I find him out. Oh,
that he would shine upon my darkness, and bring forth my morn-
ing hght from under the thick cloud, that men have spread over
me ! Oh, that the Almighty would lay my cause in a balance,
and weigh me, if my soul was not taken up,' when others were
sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed with a bride, in that part
of the land ! But that day that my mouth was most unjustly and
cruelly closed, the bloom ^ fell off my branches, and my joy did
cast the flower. Howbeit, I have been casting myself under God's
feet, and wrestling to believe vmder a hidden and covered Lord,
yet my fainting cometh before I eat, and my faith hath bowed
Avith the sore cast, and under this almost insupportable weight.
Oh, that it break not ! I dare not say that the Lord hath put out
my candle, and hath casten water upon my poor coal, and bioken
the stakes of my tabernacle : but I have tasted bitterness, and
eaten gall and wormwood, since that day on which my Master
laid bonds upon me to speak no more. I speak not this, because
the Lord is unco ^ to me ; but because beholders, that stand on dry
land, see not my sea-storm. The witnesses of my sad cross, are
but strangers to my sad days and nights. Oh, that Christ would
let me alone, and speak love to me, and come home to me, and
bring sunnner with him ! Oh, that I might preach his beauty
and glor}'-, as once I did, before my clay-tent be removed to dark-
ness ; and that I might lift Christ off the ground, and my branches
might be watered with the dew of God, and my joy in his work
might grow green again, and bud, and send out a flower ! But
I am but a short-sighted creature, and my candle casteth not light
afar off. He knoweth all that is done to me ; how that when I
had but one joy, and no more, and one green flower that I es-
teemed to be my garland, he came in one hour and dried up my
* Occupied. 2 Blossom. 3 Distant, reserved.
19
290 Rutherford's letters.
flower at the root, and took away mine only eye, and my one ^
only crown and garland. What can I say ? Surely my guilti-
ness hath been remembered before him, and he was seeking to
take down my sails, and to land the flower of my delights, and to
let it lye on the coast, like an old broken ship, that is no more for
the sea. But I praise him for this waled - stroke. I welcome
this furnace ; God's wisdom made choice of it for me, and it must
be best, because it was his choice. Oh, that I may wait for him
till the morning of this benighted Kirk break out ! This poor
afflicted Kirk had a fair morning ; but her night came upon her
before her noon-day, and she was like a traveller, forced to take
house in the morning of his journey : and now her adversaries are
the chief men in the land ; her ways mourn ; her gates languish ;
her children sigh for bread ; and there is none to be instant with
the Lord, that he would come again to his house, and dry the face
of his weeping spouse, and comfort Zion's mourners, who are
waiting for him. I know that he will make corn to grow upon
the top of his withered Mount Zion again.
Remember my bonds, and forget me not. Oh, that my Lord
would bring me again amongst you, with abundance of the
Gospel of Christ ! But oh, that I may set down my desires, where
my Lord biddeth me ! Remember my love in the Lord to your
husband — God make him faithful to Christ — and my blessing to
your three children. Faint not in prayer for this Kirk. Desire
my people not to receive a stranger and intruder upon my minis-
try. Let me stand in that right and station that my Lord Jesus
gave me.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXVL
TO JOHN GORDON, AT RUSCO.
Dear Brother, — I earnestly desire to know the case of your
soul, and to understand that ye have made sure work of Heaven
and salvation.
1. Remember that salvation is one of Christ's dainties which he
giveth but to a few. 2. That it is violent sweating and striving
that taketh Heaven. 3. That it cost Christ's blood to purchase
that house to sinners, and to set mankind down as the King's
free-tenants and free-liolders. 4. That many make a start tow-
ards Heaven, who fall on their back, and win ^ not up to the top
of the mount. It plucketh heart and legs from them, and (hey
sit down and give it over, because the Devil setteth a sweet-
' This numeral, construed in this manner, is, in the Scottish dialect, indicative of
great emphasis. 2 Carefully selected. ^ Attain.
Rutherford's letters. 291
smelled flower to their nose, this fair busked ' world, wherewith
they are bewitched, and so forget or refuse to go forward. 5. Re-
member tliat many go far on, and reform many things, and can
find tears, as Esau did ; and suffer hunger for truth, as Judas did ;
and wish and desire the end of the righteous, as Balaam did ; and
profess fair, and fight for the Lord, as Saul did ; and desire the
saints of God to pray for them, as Pharaoh and Simon Magus did ;
and. prophesy and speak of Christ, as Caiaphas did ; and walk
softly and mourn for fear of Judgments, as Ahab did ; and put
away gross sins and idolatry, as Jehu did ; and hear the word of
God gladly, and reform their life in many things according to the
word, as Herod did ; and say, " Master," to Christ, " I will follow
thee whither thou goest," as the man who offered to be Christ's
servant, (Matt. viii. 19;) and may taste of the virtues of the hfe
to come, and be partaker of the wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit,
and taste of the good word of God, as the apostates, who sin
against the Holy Ghost, (Heb. vi.:) and yet, all these are but like
gold in clink and color, and are watered ^ brass and base metal.
These are written, that we should try ourselves, and not rest till
we be a step nearer Christ than sun-burned and withering profes-
sors can come. 6. Consider, it is impossible that your idol-sins and
ye can go to Heaven together : and, that they, who will not part
with these, cannot indeed love Christ at the bottom, but only in
word and show, which will not do the business. 7. Remember
how swiftly God's post, time, flieth away ; and that your forenoon
is already spent, your afternoon will come, and then your evening,
and, at last, night, when ye cannot see to work : let your heart be
set upon the finishing of your journey, and the summing and lay-
ing of your accounts with your Lord. Oh, how blessed shall ye
be, to have a joyful welcome of your Lord at night ! How blessed
are they, who in time take sure course with their souls ! Bless
his great name, for what ye possess in goods and children, ease
and worldly contentment, that he hath given you : and seek to be
like Christ in humility and lowliness of mind : and be not great
and entire^ with the world : make it not your god nor your lover,
whom ye trust unto, for it will deceive you.
I recommend Christ and his love to you, in all things. Let him
have the flower of your heart and your love. Set a low price upon
all things but Christ ; and cry down, in your thoughts, clay and
dirt, that will not comfort you, when ye get summons to remove,
and compear^ before your Judge, to answer for all the deeds done
in the body. The Lord give you wisdom in all things. I beseech
you to sanctify God in your speaking, for holy and reverend is his
name : and be temperate and sober : companion ry,^ as it is called,
is a sin that holdeth men out of Heaven. I will not believe, that
ye will receive the ministry of a stranger, who will preach a new
and unco* doctrine to you. Let my salvation stand for it, if I
1 Decked. 2 plaited with silver.
3 On the most intimate and familiar terms. ■» Appear.
5 Too much sociality, or fondness of company. ^ Strange.
292 Rutherford's letters.
delivered not the plain and whole counsel of God to you in his
word.
Read this letter to your wife, and remember my love to her ;
and request her to take heed to do what I write to you. I pray
for you, and yours. Remember me in your prayers to our Lord,
that he would be pleased to send me amongst you again. Grace
be with you.
Your lawful, and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXVIL
TO MR. HUGH HENDERSON.
Reverend and dear Brother,— Who knoweth, but the
wind may turn into the west again, upon Christ and his desolate
bride in this land ; and that Christ may get his summer by course
again ? for he hath had ill weather this long time, and could not
find law or justice for himself and his truth these many years. I
am sure the wheels of this crazed and broken Kirk run all upon
no otlier axle-tree, nor is there any other to roll them, and cog '
them, and drive them, than tlie wisdom and good pleasure of our
Lord ; and it were a just trick, and glorious, of never-sleeping
Providence, to bring our brethren's darts, which they have shot at
us, back upon their own heads. Suppose they have two strings
to their bow, and can take one as another faileth them, yet there
are more than three strings upon our Loid's bow ; and, besides,
he cannot miss the white "^ that he shooteth at. I know that he
shuffleth up and down in his hand the great body of Heaven and
earth ; and that Kirk and commonwealth are in his hand, like a
stock of cards,^ and that he dealeth the play to the mourners of
Zion, and to those that say, " Lie down, that we may go over
you," at his own sovereign pleasure : and I am sure, that Zion's
adversaries, in this play, shall not take up their own stakes again.
Oh, how sweet a thing is it to trust in him ! When Christ hath
sleeped out his sleep, (if I may speak so of Him, who is the
Watchman of Israel, that neither slumbereth nor sleepeth,) and
his own are tried, he will arise as a strong man after wine, and
make bare his holy arm, and put on vengeance as a cloak, and
deal vengeance thick and double amongst the haters of Zion. It
may be that we may see him sow, and send down maledictions
and vengeances, as thick as drops of rain or hail, upon his ene-
mies ; for our Lord oweth them a black day, and he useth duly to
pay his debts : — neither his friends and followers, nor his foes and
adversaries, shall have it to say, " that he is not faithful and exact
in keeping his word."
1 To cog, to place a stone or piece of wood wedgewise between a wheel and the
ground, so as to prevent the wheel from moving.
2 Mark in a target, at which shooters aim. 3 Pack of cards.
Rutherford's letters. 293
I know of no bar in God's way, lAit Scotland's guiltiness ; and
he can come over that impediment, and break that bar also, and
then say to guilty Scotland, as he said, (Ezek. xxxvi.,) "Not for
your sakes," etc. On-waiting had ever yet a blessed issue ; and
to keep the word of God's patience, keepeth still the saints dry in
the water, cold in the fire, and breathing and blood-hot in the
grave. What are prisons of iron walls, and gates of brass to
Christ? Not so good as fail-dykes,^ fortifications of straw, or old
tottering walls. If he give the word, then chains will fall off the
arms and legs of his prisoners. God be thanked, that our Lord
Jesus hath the tutoring of King and court and nobles ; and that
he can dry the gutters ^ and the mires in Zion, and lay causeways
to the temple with the carcases of bastard Lord-prelates, and idol-
shepherds. The corn on the house-tops got never the husband-
man's prayers, and so is seen on it, for it fiUeth not the hand of
mowers. Christ, and truth, and innocency worketh even under
the earth : and verily there is hope for the righteous. We see not
what conclusions pass in Heaven anent all the affairs of God's
house. We need not give hire to God to take vengeance of his
enemies, for justice worketh without hire. Oh, that the seed of
hope would grow again, and come to maturity ! and that we could
importune Christ, and double our knocks at his gate, and cast our
cries and shouts over the wall, that he might come out, and make
our Jerusalem the praise of the whole earth, and give us salvation
for walls and bulwarks ! If Christ bud, and grow green, and
bloom ^ and bear seed again in Scotland, and his Father send him
two summers in one year, and bless his crop, oh, what cause have
we to rejoice in the free salvation of our Lord, and to set up our
banners in the name of our God ! Oh, that he would hasten the
confusion of the leprous strumpet, the Mother and Mistress of
abominations in the earth, and take graven images out of the way,
and come in with the Jews in troops, and agree with his old out-
cast and forsaken wife, and take them again to his bed of love !
Grace be with you.
Yours, in our Master and Lord. S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXVIII.
TO THE LADY LARGIRIE.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I exhort you
in the Lord, to go on in your journey to Heaven ; and to be con-
tent with such fare by the way, as Christ and his followers have
had before you ; for they had always the wind on their faces ; and
our Lord hath not changed the way to us for our ease, but will
have us following our sweet Guide. Alas, how doth sin clog us
in our journey, and retard us ! What fools are we, to have a by-
' Walls of turf. 2 Psalm cxxix. 8. 3 Blossom.
294 RUTHERFORD S LETTERS.
good/ or any other love, or match to our souls, beside Christ ! It
were best for us, like ill bairns, who are best heard at home, to seek
our own home, and to sell our hopes of this little clay-inn and idol of
the earth, where we are neither well summered, nor well wintered.
Oh, that our souls would so fall at odds with the love of this world,
as to think of it as a traveller doth of a drink of water, which is
not any part of his treasure, but goeth away with the using ; — for
ten-miles journey maketh that drink to him as nothing. Oh, that
we had as soon done with this world, and could as quickly dispatch
the love of it ! but as a child cannot hold two apples in his little
hand, but the one putteth the other out of its room ; so neither
can we be masters and lords of two loves. Blessed were we, if we
could make ourselves masters of that invaluable treasure, the love
of Christ ; or rather suffer ourselves to be mastered and subdued
to Christ's love, so as Christ were our all things, and all other
things our nothings, and the refuse of our delights. Oh let us be
ready for shipping against the time our Lord's wind and tide
call for us ! Death is the last thief, that will come without the
least din or noise of feet, and take our souls away, and we shall
take our leave of time and face eternity ; and our Lord will lay
together the two sides of this earthly tabernacle, and fold us, and
lay us by,*^ as a man layeth by* clothes at night, and put the one
half of us in a house of clay, the dark grave, and the other half of
us in Heaven or Hell. Seek to be found of your Lord in peace,
and gather in your flitting,' and put your soid in order, for Christ
will not give a nail-breadth of time to our little sand-glass.
Pray for Zion, and for me his prisoner, that he would be pleased
to bring me amongst you again, full of Christ, and fraughted and
loaded with the blessing of his Gospel.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his only Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXIX.
TO EARLSTON, YOUNGER.
Worthy and dearly beloved in our Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. — I long to hear from you. I remain
still a prisoner of hope, and do think it service to the Lord, to wait
on still with submission, till the Lord's morning sky break, and
his summer day dawn : for I am persuaded that it is a piece of
the chief end of our life, which God sent us for some years down
to this earth, among devils and men, the fire-brands of the Devil,
and temptations, that we might suffer for a time here amongst
our enemies ; otherwise we might have made Heaven to wait on
• An object which we secretly regard as our chief good, different from that on which
our affections are avowedly placed. 2 Past.
3 Goods to be removed from one residence to another.
Rutherford's letters. 295
us, at our coming out of the womb, and have carried us home to
our country, without letting us set down our feet in this knotty
and thorny life. But seeing a piece of suffering is carved to every
one of us, less or more, as Infinite Wisdom hath thought good,
our part is to harden and habituate our soft and thin-skinned na-
ture, to endure fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, wo' hearts,
as these that are looked upon by God, angels, men, and devils. Oh,
what folly is it, to sit down and weep upon a decree of God, that
is both deaf and dumb to our tears, and must stand still as un-
movable as God who made it! for who can come behind our Lord,
to alter, or better wliat he hath decreed and done? It were better
to make windows in our prison, and to look out to God and our
country, Heaven, and to cry, like fettered men, who long for the
King's free air, "Lord, let thy kingdom come! Oh, let the Bride-
groom come ! And, O day, O fair day, O everlasting summer
day, dawn and shine out, break out from under the black night-
sky, and shine !" I am persuaded that, if every day a little stone
in the prison w^alls were broken, and thereby assurance given to the
chained prisoner lying under twenty stone of irons upon arms and
legs, that at length his chain should wear into two pieces, and a hole
should be made at length, as wide as he might come safely out
to his long-desired liberty ; he would, in patience, wait on, till
time should hoUnhe prison wall and break his chains. The
Lord's hopeful prisoners, under their trials, are in that case. Years
and months will take out now one little stone, then another, of this
house of clay, and at length time shall win' out the breadth of a
fair door, and send out the imprisoned soul to the free air in Heav-
en ; and time shall file off", by little and little, our iron bolts, wliich
are now on legs and arms, and outdate, and wear our troubles
threadbare, and full of holes, and then wear them to nothing ; — •
for what I suffered yesterday, I know, shall never come again to
trouble me.
Oh, that we could breathe out new hope and new submission
every day, into Christ's lap ! For certainly, a weight of glory,
well weighed, yea, increasing to a far more exceeding and eternal
weight, shall recompense both weight and length of liglit, and
clipped and short-dated^ crosses. Our waters are but ebb,' and
come neither to our chin, nor to the stopping of our breath. I
may see, (if I would borrow eyes from Christ,) dry land, and that
near ; why, then, should we not laugh at adversity, and scorn our
short-born, and soon-dying temptations ? I rejoice in the hope of
that glory to be revealed, for it is no uncertain glory which we
look for. Our hope is not lumg upon such an untwisted thread,
as, "I imagine so," or, "It is likely:" but the cable, the strong
towe« of our fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him
who is eternal verity ; our salvation is fastened with God's own
hand, and with Christ's own strength, to the strong stoup,' of
God's unchangeable nature. (Mai. iii. 6,) "I am the Lord, I
1 Grieved. 2 Pierce through. 3 Get. < Transitory.
5 Shallow 6 Hawser. "^ Stake, post
296 Rutherford's letters.
chansre not ; and, ibeiefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."
We may play, and dance, and leap upon our worthy and immov-
able Rock; the ground is sure and good, and will bide' Hell's
branpling, and devils' brangling, and the world's assaults.
Oh, if otn- faith could ride it out, against the high and proud
Avaves and winds, when our sea seemeth to be all on fire ! Oh,
how oft do I let my grips' go ! I am put to swimming and half
sinking. I find that the Devil hath the advantage of the ground,
in this battle ; for he fighteth on knovvii ground, in our corrupt
nature. Alas ! that is a friend near of kin and blood to himself,
and will not fail to fall foul upon us : and hence it is, that He who
savetli to the uttermost, and leadeth many sons to glory, is still
righting my salvation, and twenty times a day I ravel my heaven,
and then 1 must come vv^ith my ill-ravelled work to Christ, to
cumber him (as it Vv^ere,) to right it, and to seek again the right
end of the thread, and to fold up again my eternal glory with his
own hand, and to give a right cast of his holy and gracious hand
to my marred and spilled^ salvation. Certainly it is a cumber-
some thing, to keep a foohsh child from falls and broken brows,
and weeping for this and that toy, and rash running, and sick-
ness, and bairns' diseases; ere he win* through them all, and
win^ out of the mires, he costeth meikle black cumber and fash-
ery ^ to his keepers : and so is a believer a cumbersome piece of
work, and an ill-ravelled hesp,^ (as we use to say,) to Christ ; but
God be thanked, for many spilled salvations, and many ill-ravelled
liesps hath Christ jnended, since first he entered Tutor to lost
mankind. Oh, what could we, bairns, do without him! how soon
would we mar all ! But the less of our weight be upon our own
feeble legs, and the more that we be on Christ the strong Rock,
the better for us ; it is good for us, that ever Christ took the cum-
ber of us ; it is our heaven, to lay many weights and burdens upon
Christ, and to make him all we have, root and top, beginning and
ending of our salvation. Lord hold us here.
Now to this tutor, and rich Lord, I recommend you. Hold fast
till he come ; and remember his prisoner.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his and your Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXC.
TO MR. WILLIAM DALGLEISH.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you — I received your letter. I bless your high and only
wise Lord, who hath broken the snare that men had laid for you ;
and I hope, that now he will keep you in his house, in despite of the
1 Stand. 2 Hold. 3 Spoiled. * Get.
5 Unspeakable trouble and annoyance. ^ Hank of yarn.
Rutherford's letters. 297
powers of Hell. Who knoweth, but the streets of our Jerusalem
shall yet be filled with young men, and with old men, and boys,
and women with child ; and that they shall plant vines in the
mountains of Samaria? I am sure that the wheels, paces, and
motions of this poor Church are tempered and ruled, not as men
would, but according to the good pleasure and infinite wisdom of
our only wise Lord.
I am here, waiting in hope that my innocency, in this honor-
able cause, shall melt this cloud that men have casten over me.
I know that my Lord had his own quarrels against me, and that
my dross stood in need of this hot furnace : but I rejoice in this,
that fair truth, beautiful truth, (whose glory my Lord cleareth to
me more and more,) beareth me company ; and that my weak
aims to honor my Master, in bringing guests to his house, now
swell upon me in comforts ; and that I am not afraid that I want
a witness in Heaven, that it was my joy to have a crown put
upon Christ's head in that country. Oh, what joy would I have,
to see the wind turn upon the enemies of the cross of Christ, and
to see my Lord Jesus restored, with the voice of praise, to his own
free throne again ; and to be brought amongst you, to see the
beauty of the Lord's house !
I hope that country will not be so silly, as to suffer men to
pluck you away from them ; and, that ye will use means to keep
my place empty and to bring me back again to the people, to
whom I have Christ's right and his Church's lawful calling.
Dear brother, let Christ be dearer and dearer to you ; let the
conquest ' of souls be top and root, flower and bloom of your joys
and desires, on this side of sun and moon : and in the day, when
the Lord shall pull up the four stakes of this clay tent of the
earth, and the last pickle^ of sand shall be at the nick^ of falling
down in your watch-glass, and the master shall call the servants
of the vineyard to give them their hire, ye will esteem the bloom
of this world's glory like the colors of the rainbow, that no man
can put into his purse and treasure ; your labor and pains will
then smile upon you.
My Lord now hath given me experience, (howbeit weak and
small,) that our best fare here is hunger. We are but at God's
by-board,^ in this lower house ; we have cause to long for supper-
time, and the high table, up in the high palace ; this world deserv-
eth nothing, but the outer court of our soul. Lord, hasten the
marriage-supper of the Lamb. I find it still peace to give up
with this present world, as with an old decourted^ and cast-off
lover : my bread and drink in it, is not so much worth that I
should not loathe the inns, and pack up my desires for Christ,
whom I have sent out to the feckless^ creatures in it. Grace,
grace be with you.
' Your affectionate brother, and Christ's prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
1 Acquisition. 2 Grain 3 Point.
* Side-table. 5 Discarded. 6 Feeble, worthless
298 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CXCI.
TO THE LAIRD OF CALLY.
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you —
I long to hear how your sonl prospereth ! I have that confidence J
that your soul mindeth Christ and salvation. I beseech you, in
the Lord, to give more pains and diligence to fetch Heaven, than
the country -sort of lazy professors, who think their own faith and
their own godliness, because it is their own, best ; and content
themselves with a cold-rife ' custom and course, with a resolution
to summer and winter in that sort of profession whicli the multi-
tude and the times favor most; and are still shaping and clipping
and carving their faith, according as it may best stand with their
summer sun and a whole skin ; and so breathe out both hot and
cold in God's matters, according to the course of the times : this
is their compass which they sail toward Heaven by, instead of a
better. Worthy, and dear sir, separate yourself from such, and
bend yourself to the utmost of your strength and breath, in run-
nuig fast for salvation : and, in taking Christ's kingdom, use vio-
lence. It cost Christ and all his followers sharp showers and hot
sweats, ere they won^ to the top of the mountain: but still our
soft nature would have heaven coming to our bed-side, when we
are sleeping, and lying down with us, that we might go to Heaven
in warm clothes ; but all that came there, found wet feet by the way,
and sharp storms, that did take the skin off their face, and found
tos and fros, and ups and downs, and many enemies by the way.
It is impossible that a man can take his lusts to Heaven with
him ; such wares as these will not be welcome there. Oh, how
loth are we to forego our packalds ^ and burdens, that hinder us
to run our race with patience ! It is no small work to displease
and anger nature, that we may please God. Oh, if ^ it be hard to
win one foot or half an inch out of our own will, our own wit,
out of our own ease and worldly lusts; and so to deny ourself
and to say, " It is not I but Christ, not I but grace, not I but God's
glory, not I but God's love constraining me, not I but the Lord's
word, not I but Christ's commanding power in me !" Oh, what
pains, and what a death is it to nature, to turn me, myself, my
lust, my ease, my credit, over unto my Lord, my Saviour, my
King, and my God, my Lord's will, my Lord's grace ! But alas !
that idol, that whorish creature, myself, is the master-idol we all
bow to. What made Evah miscarry? and what hurried her
headlong upon the forbidden fruit, but that wretched thing her-
self ? What drew that brother-murderer to kill Abel ? that wild
himself. What drove the old world on to corrupt their ways?
what, but themselves, and their own pleasure ? What was the
cause of Solomon's falhng into adultery and multiplying of
1 Cold, indiflerent. 2 Got. 3 Wallets. •» Oh, but.
Rutherford's letters. 299
strange wives? what, but himself, whom he would rather pleasure
than God ? What was the hook that took David and snared him
first in adultery, but his self-kist; and then in murder, but his
self-credit and self-honor? What led Peter on to deny his Lord?
Avas it not a piece of himself, and self-love to a whole skin ?
What made Judas sell his Master for thirty pieces of money, but
a piece of self-love, idolizing of avaricious self? What made
Demas to go off the way of the Gospel, to embrace this present
world? even self-love and love of gain for himself Every man
blameth the Devil for his sins ; but the great devil, the house-devil
of every man, the house-devil that eateth and lyeth in every
man's bosom, is that idol that killeth all, himself. Oh, blessed
are they, who can deny themselves, and put Christ in the room
of themselves ! Oh, would to the Lord, that I had not a myself,
but Christ ; nor, a my lust, but Christ ; nor, a my ease, but
Christ ; nor, a my honor, but Christ ! Oh, sweet word ! (Gal.
ii. 20,) " I live no more, but Christ liveth in me !" Oh, if every
one would put away himself, his own self, his own ease, his own
pleasure, his own credit, and his own twenty things, his own hun-
dred things, which he setteth up, as idols, above Christ ! Dear
sir, I know that ye will be looking back to your old self, and to
your self-lust and self-idol, which ye set up in the lusts of youth,
above Christ.
Worthy sir, pardon this my freedom of love. God is my witness,
that it is out of an earnest desire after your soul's eternal welfare,
that I use this freedom of speech. Your sun, I know, is lower,
and your evening sky and sun-setting nearer than when I saw
you last : strive to end your task before night, and to make Christ,
yourself, and to acquaint your love and your heart with the Lord,
Stand now by Christ and his truth, when so many fall foully, and
are false to him. I hope that ye love him and his truth : let me
have power with you to confirm you in him. I think more of my
Lord's sweet cross than of a crown of gold, and a free kingdom
lying to it.
Sir, I remember you in my prayers to the Lord, according to ray
promise. Help me with your prayers, that our Lord would be
pleased to bring me amongst you again, with the Gospel of Christ.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweetest Lord, and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCIL
TO JOHN GORDON, OF CARDONESS, YOUNGER.
Dearly Beloved in our Lord, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. — I long exceedingly to hear of the case of your soul,
which hath a large share both of my prayers and careful thoughts.
300 Rutherford's letters.
Sir, remember that a precious treasure and prize is upon this short
play that ye are now upon ; even the eternity of well or wo to your
soul staudeth upon the little point of your well or ill employed
short and swift posting sand-glass.' Seek the Lord while he may
be found ; the Lord waiteth upon you. Your soul is of no little
price. Gold or silver of as much bounds as would cover the high-
est heaven round about cannot buy it. To live as others do, and
to be free of open sins, that the world crieth shame upon, will not
bring you to Heaven. As much civility and country discretion as
would lye between you and Heaven, will not lead you one foot or
one inch above condemned nature ; and therefore take pains upon
seeking of salvation, and give your will, wit, humor, the green
desires of youth's pleasures, off your hand to Christ. It is not
possible for you to know till experience teach you, how dangerous
a time youth is : it is like green and wet timber ; when Christ
casteth fire on it, it taketh not fire. There is need here of more
than ordinary pains, for corrupt nature hath a good back-friend of
youth : and sinning against light will put out your candle, and
stupify your conscience, and bring upon it more coverings and
skin, and the feeling and sense of guiltiness ; and when that is
done, the Devil is like a mad horse that hath broken his bridle,
and runneth away with his rider whither he listeth. Learn to
know that which the Apostle knew — the deceitfulness of sin.
Strive to make prayer, and reading, and holy company, and holy
conference your delight ; and when delight cometh in, ye shall by
little and little smell the sweetness of Christ, till at length your
soul be over head and ears in Christ's sweetness. Then shall ye
be taken up to the top of the mountain with the Lord, to know
the ravishments of spiritual love, and the glory and excellency
of a seen, revealed, felt, and embraced Christ : and then ye shall
not be able to loose yourself off Christ, and to bind your soul to
old lovers : then, and never till then, are all the paces, motions,
walkings, and wheels of your soul in a right tune, and in a spirit-
ual temper.
But if this world and the lusts thereof be your delight, I know
n.ot what Christ can make of you ; ye cannot be metal to be a
vessel of glory and mercy. As the Lord hveth, thousand thou-
sands are beguiled with security, because God, and wrath, and
judgment are not terrible to them. Stand in awe of God, and of
the w^arnings of a checking and rebuking conscience. Make
others to see Christ in you, moving, doing, speaking and thinking :
your actions will smell of him, if he be in you. There is an instinct
in the new-born babes of Christ, like the instinct of nature that
leads birds to build their nests, and bring forth their young, and
love such and such places, as woods, forests, and wilderness, better
than other places. The instinct of nature maketh a man love
his mother-country, above all countries ; the instinct of renewed
nature and supernatural grace, will lead you to such and such
works, as to love your country above, to sigh to be clothed with
1 Hour-glass.
Rutherford's letters. 301
your house not made with hands, and to call your borrowed prison
here below, a borrowed prison ; and to look upon it servant-like
and pilgiira-like : and the pilgrim's eye and look is a disdainful-
like discontented cast of his eye, his heart crying after his eye,
" Fy, fy, this is not like my country."
I recommend to you the mending of a hole, and reforming of a
failing, one or other, every week ; and put off' a sin or a piece of
it, as of anger, wrath, lust, intemperance, every day, that ye may
more easily master the remnant of your corruption. God hath
given you a wife ; love her, and let her breasts satisfy you ; and,
for the Lord's sake, drink no waters, but out of your own cistern :
strange wells are poison. Strive to learn some new way against
your corruptions from the man of God. Mr. William Dalgleish, or
other servants of God. Sleep not sound, till ye find yourself in
that case, that ye dare look death in the face and durst hazard
your soul upon eternity. I am sure, that many ells and inches
of the short thread of your life are by-hand' since I saw you: and
that thread hath an end ; and ye have no hand to cast a knot,
and add one day or a finger-breadth to the end of it. When hearing,
and seeing, and the outer walls of the clay-house shall fall down, and
life shall render the besieged castle of clay to death and judgment,
and ye find your time worn ebb ^ and run out, what thoughts will
you then have of idol-pleasures that possibl}^ are now sweet? what
bud' or hire would you tlien give for the Lord's favor? and what
a price would ye then give for pardon? It were not amiss to think,
" What if I were to receive a doom, and to enter into a furnace of
fire and brimstone? what if it come to this, that I shall have
no portion but utter darkness ? and what if I be brought to this,
to be banished from the presence of God, and to be given over to
God's Serjeants, the Devil, and tlie power of the Second Death?"
Put your soul, by supposition, in such a case, and consider what
horror would take hold of you, and what ye would then esteem
of pleasing yourself in the course of sin. Oh, dear sir, for the
Lord's sake awake to live righteously, and love your poor soul !
and after ye have seen this my letter, say with yourself, " The
Lord wil seek an account of this warning which I have received."
Lodge Christ in your family. Receive no stranger hirehng as
your pastor. I bless your chiklren. Grace be with you.
Your lawful and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCIIL
TO ROBERT GORDON, BAILLIE OF AYR.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I long to
hear from you. Our Lord is with his afflicted Kirk, so that this
1 Gone past. ^ Shallow. 3 Bribe.
302 Rutherford's letters.
burning bush is not consumed to ashes. I know that submissive
on- wailing for the Lord will at length ripen the joy and dehver-
ance of his own, who are truly blessed on-waiters. What is the
dry and miscarrying hope of all them who are not in Christ, but
confusion and wind ? Oh, how pitifully and miserably are the
children of this world beguiled, whose wine cometh home to them,
water, and their gold, brass and tin ! And what wonder, that
hopes builded upon sand should fall and sink ? It were good for
us all to abandon the forlorn, and blasted, and withered hope,
which we have had in the creature ; and let us henceforth come
and drink water out of our own well, even the fountain of living
waters, and build ourselves and our hope upon Christ, our Rock.
But, alas ! that that natural love, which we have to this borrowed
home, that we were born in ; and that this clay city, the vain
earth, should have the largest share of our heart ! Our poor, lean,
and empty dreams of confidence in something beside God, are no
further travelled than up and down the noughty' and feckless'
creatures. God may say of us, as he said, (Amos vi. 13,) " Ye
rejoice in a thing of nought." Surely we spin our spider's web
with pain, and build our rotten and tottering house upon a lie, and
falsehood, and vanity.
Oh, when will we learn to have thoughts higher than the sun
and moon, and learn our joy, hope, confidence, and our soul's de-
sires, to look up to our best country, and to look down to clay
tents set up for a night's lodging or two in this unknown land, and
laugh at our childish conceptions and imaginations, that suck our
joy out of creatures, wo, sorrow, losses, and grief ! " O sweetest
Lord Jesus ! O fairest Godhead ! O Flower of men and angels !
why are we such strangers to, and far-off beholders of thy glory."
Oh, it were our happiness for evermore, that God would cast a
pest, a botch, a leprosy, upon our part of this great whore, a fair
and well-busked ^ world, that clay might no longer deceive us !
But oh, that God may burn and blast our hope hereaway,* rather
than that our hope should live to burn us ! Alas, the wrong side
of Christ, to speak so, his black side, his suffering side, his wounds,
his bare coat, his wants, his wrongs, the oppressions of men done
to him, are turned towards men's eyes ; and they see not the best
and fairest side of Christ, nor see they his amiable face and his
beauty, that men and angels wonder at.
Sir, lend your thoughts to these things, and learn to contemn
this world, and to turn your eyes and heart away from beholding
the masked beauty of all things under time's law and doom. See
Him who is invisible and his invisible things ; draw by^ the cur-
tain, and look in with liking and longing to a kingdom undefiled,
that fadeth not away, reserved for you in the Heaven. This is
worthy of your pains, and worthy of your soul's sweating, and la-
boring, and seeking after, night and day. Fire will flee" over the
earth, and all that is in it ; even destruction from the Almighty.
1 Having nothing in it. 2 Unsubstantial. 3 Gaily decked.
•• In this present sense. 5 Aside. ^ Fly.
Rutherford's letters. 303
Fy, fy upon that hope, that shall be dried up by the root ! Fy
upon the drunken night bargains, and the drunken and mad cov-
enants, that sinners make with death and Hell after cups, and
when men's souls are mad and drunken with the love of this law-
less life. They think to make a nest for their hopes, and take
quarters and conditions of Hell and death, that they shall have
ease, long life, peace ; and in the morning, when the Last Trum-
pet shall awake them, then they rue the block.' It is time, and
high time for you, to think upon death and your accounts, and to
remember what ye are, and where ye will be before the year of our
Lord 1700. I hope ye are thinking upon this. Pull at your soul,
and draw it aside from the company that it is with, and round
and wbisper into it news of eternity, death, judgment. Heaven
and Hell.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCIV.
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF EARLSTON.
Much Honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. —
It is like, if ye, the gentry and nobility of this nation, be men in
the streets, as the word speaketh, for the Lord, that he will now
deliver his flock, and gather and rescue his scattered sheep, from
the hands of cruel and rigorous lords, that have ruled over them
with force. Oh, that mine eyes might see the moon-light turn to
the light of the sun ! But I still fear that the quarrel of a broken
covenant in Scotland standeth before the Lord.
However it be, I avouch it before the world, that the tabernacle
of the Lord shall again be in the midst of Scotland, and the glory
of the Lord shall dwell in beauty, as the hglit of many days in
one, in this land. Oh, what could my soul desire more, next to
my Lord Jesus, while I am in this flesh, but that Christ and his
kingdom might be great among Jews and Gentiles ; and that the
isles, (and amongst them overclouded and darkened Britain,) might
have the glory of a noon-day's sun ! Oh, that I had anything,
(I will not except my part in Christ,) to wadset ^ or lay in pledge,
to redeem and buy such glory to my highest and royal Prince,
my sweet Lord Jesus! My poor little heaven were well bestowed,
if it could stand a pawn forever, to set on high the glory of my
Lord ; but I know that he needeth not wages nor hire at my
hand ; yea, I know, if my eternal glory could weigh down in
weight its lone,^ all the eternal glory of the blessed angels, and of
all the spirits of just and perfect men, glorified and to be glorified,
1 Bargain. * Alienate. 3 By itself alone.
304 Rutherford's letters.
oh, alas ! how far am I engaged to forego it for, and give it over
to Christ, so being he might thereby be set on high above ten
thousand thousand millions of heavens, in the conquest of many,
many nations to his kingdom ! Oh, that his kingdom would
come ! Oh, that all the world would stoop before him ! Oh,
blessed hands that shall put the crown upon Christ's head in Scot-
land ! But, alas ! I can scarce get leave to ware ' my love on
him : I can fmd no ways to lay out my heart upon Christ ; and
my love, that I with my soul bestow on him, is like to die upon
my hand, and I think it no bairns' play to be hungered with
Christ's love. To love him, and to want him, wanteth little of
Hell. I am sure that he knoweth how my joy would swell upon
me, from a little well to a great sea, to have as much of his
love, and as wide a soul answerable to comprehend it, till I cried,
" Hold, Lord, no more." But I find that he will not have me to
be mine own steward, nor mine own carver. Christ keepeth the
keys of Christ, (to speak so,) and of his own love, and he is a
wiser distributer than I can take up : I know that there is more
in him than would make me run over like a coast- ful sea. I
were happy for evermore, to get leave to stand but beside Christ
and his love, and to look in, suppose I were interdicted of God to
come near-hand, 2 touch, or embrace, kiss, or set to my sinful head,
and drink myself drunk with that lovely thing. God send me
that which I would have ; for I now verily see, more clearly than
before, our folly in drinking dead waters, and in playing the whore
with our soul's love upon running-out wells, and broken sherds of
creatures of yesterday, which time will unlaw ^ with the penalty
of losing tlieir being and natural ornaments. Oh, when a soul's
love is itching, (to speak so,) for God ; and when Christ, in his
boundless and bottomless love, beauty, and excellency, cometh
and rubbeth up and exciteth that love, what can be heaven, if
this be not heaven? I am sure that this bit feckless,* narrow and
short love of regenerated sinners, was born for no other end, than
to breathe, and live, and love, and dwell in the bosom and betwixt
the breasts of Christ. Where is there a bed or a lodging for the
saints' love, but Christ ? Oh, that he would take ourselves off
our hand ! for neither we, nor the creatures can be either due con-
quest ^ or lawful heritage to love : Christ, and none but Christ, is
lord and proprietor of it. Oh, alas, how pitiful is it, that so much
of our love goeth by'' him ! Oh, but we be wretched wasters of
our soul's love ! I know it to be the depth of bottomless and un-
searchable providence, that the saints are suffered to play the
whore from God, and that their love goeth a-hunting, when God
knoweth that it shall roast nothing of that at supper time. The
renewed would have it otherwise ; and why is it so, seeing our
Lord can keep us without nodding, tottering, or reeling, or any
fall at all? Our desires, I hope, shall meet with perfection: but
God will have our sins an oflice-house for God's grace, and hath
' Expend, lay out. 2 Near. 3 Fine, amerce.
< Feeble. 5 Acquisition by purchase or industry. ^ Past.
Rutherford's letters. 305
made sin a matter of an unlaw ^ and penalty for the Son of God's
blood: and howbeit sin should be our sorrow, yet there is a sort
of acquiescing and resting upon God's dispensation required of us,
that there is such a thing in us as sin, whereupon mercy, forgive-
ness, healing, curing, in our sweet physician, may find a field to
work upon. Oh, what a deep is here, that created wisdom can-
not take up ! However matters go, it is our happiness to win new
ground daily, in Christ's love, and to purchase a new piece of it
daily, and to add conquest '^ to conquest,^ till our Lord Jesus and
we be so near each other, that Satan shall not draw a straw or a
thread betwixt us.
And, for myself, I have no greater joy, in my well-favored bonds
for Christ, than that I know time will put hirn and me together;
and that my love and longing hath room and liberty, amidst my
bonds and foes, (whereof there are not a few here of all ranks,) to
go to visit the borders, and outer coasts of the country of my Lord
Jesus, and see, at least afar off and darkly, the country which
shall be mine inheritance, which is the due of my Lord Jesus, both
through birth and conquest.'^ I dare avouch to all that know God,
that the saints know not tlie length and largeness of the sweet
earnest and of the sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that
might be had on this side of the water, if we would take more
pains : and that we all go to Heaven with less earnest, and lighter
purses of the hoped-for sum, than otherwise we might do, if we
took more pains to win further in upon Christ, in this pilgrimage
of our absence from him.
Grace, grace and glory be your portion.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCV.
TO ROBERT STUART,
My very dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. — Ye are heartily welcome to my world of suffering, and
heartily welcome to my Master's house : God give you much joy
of your new Master. If I have been in the house before you, I
were not faithful to give the house an ill name, or to speak evil
of the Lord of the family ; I rather wish God's holy Spirit, — O
Lord, breathe upon me with that Spirit, — to tell you the fashions
of the house. One thing I can say, by on-waiting ye will grow a
great man with the Lord of the house. Hang on till ye get some
good from Christ. Lay all your loads and your v.^eights by faith
upon Christ; take ease to yourself, and let him bear all: he can,
he dow,^ he will bear you, howbeit Hell were upon your back. I
rejoice that he is come, and hath chosen you in the furnace ; it
1 A fine. 2 Acquisition by purchase or industry. 3 is able.
20
306 Rutherford's letters.
was even there where ye and he set tryst. ^ That is an old gate'
of Christ's : he keepeth the good old fashion with you. that was in
Hosea's days. (Hos. ii. 14,) "There, behold, I will allure her, and
brino- her to the wilderness, and speak to her heart." There was
no talking to her heart, while he and she were in the fair and
flourisliing city, and at ease ; but out in the cold, hungry, waste
wilderness, he allureth her ; he whispered news into her ear there,
and said, " Thou art mine." What would ye think of such a
bode ? ^ Ye may soon do worse than say, " Lord, hold all ;^ Lord
Jesus, a bargain be it, it shall not go back on my side."
Ye have gotten a great advantage in the way to Heaven that
ye have started to the gate^ in the morning. Like a fool, as I
was, I suffered my sun to be high in the heaven, and near after-
noon, before ever I took the gate' by the end. I pray you now
keep the advantage ye have. My heart, be not lazy ; set quickly
up the brae^ on hands and feet, as if the last pickle of sand were
running out of your glass, and death were coming to turn the
glass : and be very careful to take heed to your feet, in (hat slip-
pery and dangerous way of youth, that ye are walking in. The
Devil and temptations now have the advantage of the brae of
you, and are upon your wand-hand ' and your working-hand.''
Dry timber will soon take fire. Be covetous and greedy of the
grace of God, and beware that it be not holiness which cometh
only from the cross ; for too many are that way disposed. (Psalm
Ixxviii. 34,) "When he slew them then they sought him, and
they returned and inquired early after God." (Ver. 36,) " Never-
theless, they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto
him with their tongues." It is a part of our hypocris}'", to give
God fair w4iite-words,^ when he hath us in his grips,* (if I may
speak so,) and to flatter him till we win'" to the fair fields again.
Tr}^ well green godliness, and examine what it is that ye love in
Christ. If ye love but Christ's sunny side, and would have only
summer weather and a land-gate," not a sea-way to Heaven, your
profes-^ion will play you a slip, and the winter-well will go dry
again in summer.
Make no sports nor bairns' play of Christ ; but labor for a sound
and lively sight of sin, that ye may judge yourself an undone
man, a damned slave of Hell and of sin, one dying in your own
blood, except Christ come and rue upon you, and take you up ;
and, therefore, make sure and fast work of conversion. Cast the
earth deep ; and down, down with the old work, the building of
confusion that was there before ; and let Christ lay new work,
and make a new creation within you. Look if Christ's rain goeth
down to the root of your withered plants, and if his love wound
• Made apj)ointmpnt to meet. 2 Custom, manner. _ ^ Offer.
^ I-.et all that has heen said hold good: an expression used in accepting an offer,
equivalent to done in English. 5 Road. * Hill.
■' Tlie hand which holds the wand or whip that is used to drive a horse in working.
Working-hand, the hand which guides the horse. 7'o be upon one's irand-hnnd and
tDorkim: hand, to beset one on every side. * Cajoling speeches.
9 Gripe. i" Get. " Way by land
Rutherford's letters. 307
yoiii- heart whill it bleed with sorrow for sin, and if ye can pant
and fall a-swoon,' and be like to die for that lovely One, Jesus.
I know that Christ will not be hid where he is ; grace will ever
speak for itself, and be fruitful in well-doing ; the sanctified cross
is a fruitful tree, it bringeth forth many apples.
If I should tell you by some weak experience, what I have
found in Christ, ye or others could hardly believe me. I thought
not the hundredth part of Christ long since, that I do now, though,
alas ! my thoughts are still infinitely below his worth. I have a
dwming,2 sickly, and pained life, for a real possession of him ; and
am troubled with love-brashes' and love-fevers ; but it is a sweet
pain. I would refuse no conditions, not Hell excepted, (reserving
always God's hatred,) to buy possession of Jesus : but, alas ! I am
not a merchant, who have any money to give for him : I must
either come to a good-cheap* market, where wares are had for
nothing, else I go home empty. But I have casten^ this work
upon Christ to get me himself I have his faith, and truth, and
promise, (as a pawn of his,) all engaged that I shall obtain that
which my hungry desires would be at, and I esteem that the
choice of my happiness ; and for Christ's cross, especially the gar-
land and dower of all crosses, to suffer for his name, I esteem it
more than I can write or speak to you. And I write it under
mine own hand to you, that it is one of the steps of the ladder up
to our country, and Christ, (whoever be one,) is still at the heavy
end of this black tree, and so it is but as a feather to me. I need
not run at leisure, because of a burden on my back : my back never
bare the like of it ; the more heavily crossed for Christ, the soul is
still the lighter for the journey.
Now, would to God that all cold-blooded, faint-hearled soldiers
of Christ would look again to Jesus, and to his love ; and when
they look, 1 would have them to look again and again, and fill
themselves with beholding of Christ's beauty; and I dare say then,
that Christ would come into great court « and request with many.
The virgins would flock fast about the Bridegroom ; they would
embrace and take hold of him, and not let him go : — but when I
have spoken of him. till my head rive, I have said just nothing, I
may begin again. A God-head, a God-head is a world's wonder.
Set ten thousand thousand new-made worlds of angels and elect
men, and double them in numl)er, ten thousand, thousand, thou-
sand times; let their heart and tongues be ten thousand thousand
times more agile and large, than the heart and tongues of the ser-
aphims that stand with six wings before him, (Isa. vi. 2,) when
they have said all for the glorifying and praising of the Lord
Jesus, they have but spoken little' or nothing; his love will abide
all possible creatures to praise. Oh, if I could wear this tongue
to the stump, in extolling his highness ! But it is my daily-grow-
ing sorrow, that I am confounded with his incomparable love, and
that he doelh so great things for my soul, and hath got never yet
1 Into a swoon. 2 Pining. 3 Fits of love-sickness.
* Gratuitous. s Cast. « Favor. T Oh, that.
308 Rutherford's letters.
anything of me worth the speaking of. Sir, I charge you, help
me to praise him : it is a shame to speak of what he hatli done for
me and what I do to him again. I am sure that Christ hath
many drowned dyvours' in Heaven heside him : and when we are
convened, man and angel, at the great day, in that fair last meet-
ino-, we are all but his drowned dyvours:' it is hard to say, who
oweth him most. If men could do no more, I would have them
to wonder : if we cannot be filled with Christ's love, we may be
filled with wondering.
Sir, I would that I could persuade you to grow sick for Christ,
and to long after him, and be pained with love for himself: — but
His tongue is in Heaven who can do it ! To him and his rich
grace I recommend you.
I pray you, pray for me, and forget not to praise.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 17, 1637.
LETTER CXCVL
TO THE LADY GAITGIRTH.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.— I long to
know how matters stand betwixt Christ and your soul. 1 know
that ye find him still the longer the better ; time cannot change him
in his love : ye may yourself ebb and flow, rise and fall, wax and
wane ; but your Lord is this day as he was yesterday ; and it is
your comfort that your salvation is not rolled upon wheels of your
own making, neither have ye to do with a Christ of your own
shaping. God hath singled out a Mediator, strong and mighty :
if ye and your burdens were as heavy as ten hills or hells, he is able
to bear you, and save you to the uttermost. Your often seeking
to him, cannot make you a burden to him. I know that Christ
compassioneth you, and maketh a moan' for you, in all your
dumps, and under your down-castings ; but it is good for you, that
he hideth himself sometimes. It is not niceness, dryness, nor
coldness of love, that causeth Christ to withdraw, and slip in
under a curtain and a veil, that ye cannot see him ; but he know-
eth that ye could not bear with upsails, a fair gale, a full moon
and a high spring-tide of his felt love, and always a fair summer-
day and a summer-sun of a felt and possessed and embracing
Lord Jesus. His kisses and his visits to his dearest ones are thin-
sown. He could not let out his rivers of love upon his own, but
these rivers would be in hazard of loosening a young plant at the
root; and he knoweth this of you. Ye should, therefore, frist'
Christ's kindness, as to its sensible and full manifestations, till ye
and he be above sun and moon : that is the country where ye will
be enlarged for that love which ye dow not* now contain.
> Bankrupts. 2 Bemoaneth.
8 Postpone the possession oC * Are not able.
Rutherford's letters. 309
Cast the burden of your sweet babes upon Christ, and hghten
your heart, by laying- your all upon him : he will be their God. I
hope to see you up the mountain yet, and glad in the salvation of
God. Frame yourself for Christ, and gloom' not upon his cross.
I find him so sweet, that my love, suppose I would charge it to re-
move from Christ, would not obey me : his love hath stronger fin-
gers than to let go its grips' of us, bairns, who cannot go but by
such a hold as Christ. It is good that we want legs of our own,
since we may borrow from Christ ; and it is our happiness that
Christ is under an act of cautionry^ for Heaven, and that Christ
is booked in Heaven, as the principal debtor, for such poor bodies
as we are.
I request you, to give the Laird, your husband, thanks for hi«
care of me, in that he hath appeared, in public, for a prisoner of
Christ. I pray and write mercy, and peace, and blessings to him
and his.
Grace, grace be with you forever.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCVH.
TO ]MR. JOHN FERGUSHILL.
Rkverend and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. — My longings and desires for a sight of the new-builded
tabernacle of Christ again in Scotland, that tabernacle that came
down from Heaven, hath now taken some life again, when I see
Christ making a rnint^ to sow vengeance among his enemies. I
care not, if this land be ripe for such a great wonderful mercy ;
but I know, he must do it, whenever it is done, without hire. I
find the grief of my silence, and my fear to be holden at the door
of Christ's house, swelling upon me; and the truth is, were it not
that I am dawted^ now and then with pieces of Christ's sweet
love and comforts, I fear I should .have made an ill browst* of
this honorable cross, that I know such a soft and silly-minded
body as I am, is not worthy of: for I have little in me but soft-
ness, and superlative and excessive apprehensions of fear, and sad-
ness, and sorrow; and often God's terrors do surround me, because
Christ looketh not so favorably upon me, as a poor witness would
have him ; and I wonder, how I have passed a year and a quarter's
im|)risonnient. without shaming my sweet Lord to whom I desire
to be faithful: and I think I shall die but^ even minting^and aim-
ing to serve and honor my Lord Jesus. Few know how toom'
and empty I am at home ; but it is a part of marriage-love and
1 Frown. 2 Hold, gripe. 3 Suretystiip.
* Indication, by signs, of an intention. s Cockered.
6 The quantity of ale brewed at one time ; metaphorically, the consequences of one's
conduct. 7 Without. 8 Intimating an intention. » Empty.
310 Rutherford's letters.
husband-love, that my Lord Jesus goeth not to the streets with
his chiding against nie : it is but stolen and concealed anger that
I find and feel, and his glooms' to rne are kept under roof, that he
will not have mine enemies hear what is betwixt me and him.
And, believe me, I say the truth in Ciirist, that the only gall and
wormwood in my cup, and that which hath filled me with fear,
hath been, lest my sins, that sun and moon and the Lord's chil-
dren were never witness to, shoiild have moved my Lord to strike
me with dumb Sabbaths : — Lord, pardon my soft and weak jeal-
ousies,^ if I here be in an error.
My very dear brother, I would have looked for larger and more
particular letters from you, for my comfort in this ; for your words
before have strengthened me. I pray you to mend this, and be
thankful and painful, while ye have a piece or corner of the Lord's
vineyard to dress. Oh, would to God that I could have leave to
follow you to break the clods ! But I wish I could command my
soul to be silent, and to wait upon the Lord. I am sure, that
while Christ lives, I am well enough friend-stead.^ I hope that
he will extend his kindness and power for me ; but God be
thanked it is not worse with me, than a cross for Christ and his
truth. I know that he might have pitched upon many more
choice and w^orthy witnesses, if he had pleased ; but I seek no
more, (be what timber I will, suppose I were made of a piece of
Hell,) than that my Lord, in his infinite art, hew glory to his
name, and enlargement to Christ's Kingdom, out of me. Oh, that
I could attain to this, to desire that my part of Christ might be
laid in pledge for the heightening of Christ's throne in Britain !
Let my Lord redeem the pledge, or, if he please, let it sink and
drown unredeemed. But what can I add to him? or what way
can a smothered and borne-doAvn prisoner set out Christ in open
market, as a lovely and desirable Lord, to many souls ? I know
that he seeth to his own glory, better than my ebb* thoughts can
dream of; and that the wheels and paces of this poor distempered
Kirk are in his hands, and that things shall roll as Christ will
have them : — only, Lord tryst ^ the matter so, as Christ may be
made a householder and lord again in Scotland, and wet faces for
his departure may be dried at his sweet and much desired wel-
come home. I see, that in all our trials, our Lord will not mix
our wares and his grace over-head througli other ;^ but he will
have each man to know his own, that the like of me may say in
my sufferings, "This is Christ's grace, and this is but my coarse
stuff: this is free grace, and this is but nature and reason." We
know what our legs would play us, if they should carry us through
all our waters; and the least thing our Lord can have of us, is, to
know we are grace's debtors or grace's dyvours ^ and that nature
is off^ a base house and blood, and grace is better born, and of
kin and blood to Christ, and off* a better house. Oh, that I were
1 Frowns. 2 Suspicions. 9 Befriended.
* Shallow. 5 Appoint, arrange.
6 One witti another, promiscuously. 7 Bankrupts ^ Descended from.
Rutherford's letters. 311
free of that idol, which they call Myself; and that Christ were for
Myself, and Myself a decourted ' cypher, and a denied and fore-
sworn thing ! But that proud thing, Myself, will not play, except
it ride up side for side with Christ, or rather have place before
him. O Myself, — another devil, as evil as the Prince of devils ! —
if thou couldest give Christ the way, and take thine own room,
which is to sit as low as nothing or corruption ! Oh, but we have
much need to be ransomed and redeemed by Christ, from that
ziiasler-tyrant, that cruel and lawless lord, Ourself Nay, when I
am seeking Christ, and am out of myself, I have the third part of
a squint eye upon that vain, vain thing. Myself, Myself, and some-
thing of mine own : — but I must hold here.
I desire you to contribute your help, to see if I can be restored
to my wasted and lost flock. I see not how it can be, except the
lords would procure me a liberty to preach : and they have reason;
1. Because the opposers and my adversaries have practised their
new canons upon me, whereof one is. That no deprived minister
preach, under the pain of excommunication. 2. Because my op-
posing of these canons, was a special thing that incensed Syd-
serf^ against me. 3. Because I was judicially accused for my
book against the Arminians, and commanded by the Chancellor,
to acknowledge that I had done a fault in writing against Dr.
Jackson, a wicked Arminian. Pray for a room in the house to me.
Grace, grace be, (as it is,) your portion.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCVIII.
TO JOHN STUART, PROVOST OF AYR.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I long
for the time, when I shall see the beauty of the Lord in his house;
and would be as glad of it as of any sight on earth, to see (he halt,
the blind, and the lame, come back to Zion with supplications,
(Jer. xxxi. 8, 9.) "Going and weeping, and seeking the Lord, ask-
ing the way to Zion with their faces thitherward," (Jer. 1. 4, 5;)
and to see the Woman travailing in birth, delivered of the man-
child of a blessed reformation. If this land were humbled, I would
look that our skies should clear, and our day dawn again ; and ye
should then bless Christ, who is content to save your travel, and
to give himself to you, in pure ordinances on this side of the sea.
I know the mercy of Christ is engaged by promise to Scotland,
notwithstanding he bring wrath, as I fear he will, upon this land.
I am waiting on for enlargement, and half content that my
faith bow, if Clirist, while he bow it, keep it unbroken ; for who
goeth through a fire without a mark or a scald ? I see the Lord
1 Discarded. ^ The bishop of Galloway.
312 Rutherford's letters.
making use of this fire, to scour his vessels from their rust. Oh,
that my will were silent, and " as a child weaned from the breasts !"
(Psalm cxxxi.) But, alas ! who hath an heart that will give
Christ the last word in flytinj^,' and will hear, and not speak
again ? Oh ! contestations ^ and quarrelous replies (as a soon-
saddled spirit, " 1 do well to be angry even to the death,") (Jonah
iv. 9,) smell of the stink of strong corruption. Oh, blessed soul
that could sacrifice his will, and go to Heaven, having lost his will
and made resignation of it to Christ! I would seek no more, than
that Christ were absolute King over my will, and that my will
were a sufferer in all crosses, without meeting Christ with such a
word, " Why is it thus?" I wish still, that my love had but leave
to stand beside beautiful Jesus, and to get the mercy of looking to
him, and burning for him, suppose that possession of him were
suspended and fristed ^ till my Lord fold together the leaves and
two sides of the little shepherds' tents of clay. Oh, what pain is
in longing for Christ, under an over-clouded" and eclipsed assur-
ance ! What is harder than to burn and dwine^ with lonq-ing
and deaths of love, and then to have blanks and uninked paper for
assurance of Christ in' real fruition or possession ? Oh, how sweet
were one line or half a letter of a written assurance under Christ's
own hand ! But this is our exercise daily, that guiltiness shall
overmist^ and darken assurance. It is a miracle to believe, but
for a sinner to believe is two miracles. But oh, what obligations
of love are we under to Christ, who beareth with our w^ild appre-
hensions, in suffering thenn to nickname sweet Jesus, and to put
a lie upon his good name ! If he had not been God, and if long-
suffering in Christ Avere not like Christ himself, we should long
ago have broken Christ's mercies, into two pieces, and put an iron
bar on our salvation, that mercy should not have been able to
break or overleap ; but long-suffering in God, is God himself, and
that is our salvation, and the stability of our heaven is in God.
He knew, (who said, "Christ in you the hope of glory," (Col. i.
27 ;) for our hope and the bottom and pillars of it is Christ-God,)
that sinners are anchor-fast and made stable in God ; so that if
God do not change, (which is impossible,) then my hope shall not
fluctuate. Oh, sweet stability of sure-bottomed salvation ! Who
could win^ Heaven, if this were not so? and who could be saved,
if God were not God, and if he were not such a God as he is?
Oh, God be thanked that our salvation is coasted, and landed, and
shored upon Christ, who is Master of winds and storms ! And
what sea-winds can blow the coast or the land out of its place ?
Bulwarks are often casten down, but coasts are not removed:
but suppose that were or might be, yet God cannot reel nor re-
move. Oh, that we go from this strong and immovable Lord,
and that we loosen ourselves, (if it were in our power,) from him !
Alas, our green and young love hath not taken with Christ, being
unacquainted with him : he is such a wide, and broad, and deep,
1 Chidintr. 2 Altercations. 3 Postponed.
* Pine away. s Becloud. ^ Attain to.
Rutherford's letters. 313
and hicrh, and surpassing- sweetness, that our love is too little for
him. But oh, if ' our love, little as it is, could take band ^ with
his great and huge sweetness, and transcendent excellency ! Oh,
thrice blessed, and eternally blessed are they, who are out of them-
selves, and above themselves, that they may be in love united to
him !
1 am often rollingup and down the thoughts of my faint and
sick desires of expressing Christ's glory before his people ; but I see
not through the throng of impediments, and cannot find eyes to
look higher, and so I put many things in Christ's way to hinder
him, that I know he would but laugh at, and witli one stride set
his foot over them all. I know not if my Lord will bring me to
his sanctuary or not: but I know that he hath the placing of me,
either within or without the house, and that nothing will be done
without him. But I am often thinking and saying within my-
self, that my days flee away, and I see no good, neither yet
Christ's work thriving ; and it is like that the grave shall prevent
the answer of my desires of saving of souls as 1 would. But alas !
I cannot make right work of his ways; I neither spell nor read
my Lord's providence aright ; my thoughts go a way that I fear
they meet not God ; for it is likely, that God will not come the
way of my thoughts : and I cannot be taught to crucify to him my
wisdom and desires, and to make him king over my thoughts ;
for 1 would have a princedom over m)'^ thoughts, and would boldly
and blindly prescribe to God, and guide myself in a way of my
own making : — but I hold my peace here ; let him do his will.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweetest Lord, and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER CXCIX.
TO CARSLUTH.
Much honored Sir, — I long to hear how your soul prospereth.
I earnestly desire you, to try liow matters stand between your
soul and the Lord. Think it no easy matter to take Heaven by
violence. Salvation cometh now to the most part of men in a
night-dream. There is no scarcity of faith now, such as it is ; for
ye shall not now light upon the man, who will not say he Jiath
faith in Christ ; — but, alas ! dreams make no man's rights.
Worthy sir, I beseech you in the Lord, to give your soul no rest,
till ye have real assurance, and Christ's rights confirmed and
sealed to your soul. The common faith, and country-holiness,
and week-day zeal, that is among people, will never bring men to
Heaven. Take pains for your salvation; for in that day, when
ye shall see many men's labors and conquests^ and idol-riches
1 Oh. tlint. 2 Unite. An allusion to the uniting of mortar with stones in a wall.
3 Acquisitions.
314 Rutherford's letters.
lying in ashes, when the earth and all the works thereof shall be
burnt with fire, oh, how dear a price would your soul give for God's
favor in Christ! It is a blessed thing to see Christ with up-sun,
and to read over your papers and soul-accounts with fair day-
light. It will not be time to cry for a lamp, when the Bridegroom
is entered into his chamber, and the door shut. Fy, fy upon
blinded and debased souls who are committing whoredom with
tliis idol-clay, and hunting a poor, wretched, hungry heaven, a-^
hungry breakfast, a day's meat from this hungry world, with the
forfeiting of God's favor, and the drinking over of their heaven
over the board ^ (as men used to speak,) for the laughter and
sports of this short forenoon ! All that is under this vault of
Heaven, and betwixt us and death, and on this side of sun and
moon, are but toys, night-visions, head-fancies, poor shadows,
watery froth, godless vanities, at their best, and black hearts, and
salt and sour miseries, sugared over, and confected with an hour's
laughter or two, and the conceit of riches, honor, vain, vain court,
and lawless pleasures. Sir, if ye look both to the laughing side,
and to the weeping side of this world, and if ye look not only
upon the skin and color of things, but into their inwards, and the
heart of their excellency, ye shall see that one look of Christ's
sweet and lovely eye, one kiss of his fairest face, is worth ten
thousand worlds of such rotten stuff, as the foolish sons of men
set their hearts upon. Oh, sir, turn, turn your heart to the other
side of things, and get it once free of these entanglements, to con-
sider eternity, death, the clay bed, the grave, awsome ^ Judgment,
everlasting burning quick in Hell, where death would give as
great a price, (if there were a market, wherein death might be
bought and sold,) as all the world. Consider Heaven and glory :
— but, alas, why speak I of considering those things, which have
not entered into the heart of man to consider? Look into those
depths (without a bottom) of loveliness, sweetness, beauty, excel-
lency, glory, goodness, grace, and mercy, that are in Christ ; and
ye shall then cry down the whole world, and all the glory of it,
even when it is come to the summer-bloom ; and ye shall cry,
"Up with Christ, up with Christ's Father, up with eternity of
glory." Sir, there is a great deal less sand in your glass than
when I saw you, and your afternoon is nearer even-tide now than
it was. As a flood carried back to the sea, so doth the Lord's
swift post, time, carry you and your life, with wings, to the grave.
Ye eat and drink, but time standeth not still ; ye laugh, but your
day fleeth away ; ye sleep, but your hours are reckoned and put
by hand.^ Oh, how soon will time shut you out of the poor, and
cold, and hungry inn of this life ! and then what w^ill yesterday's
short-b:)rn pleasures do to you, but be as a snow-ball melted away,
many years since, or worse ? for the memory of these pleasures
useth to fill the soul with bitterness. Time and experience will
1 To drink anything over the board, formally to renounce it as a seller formerly did
when he drank to the purchaser on delivery to him of the goods sold, and wished him
luck in the purchase. 2 Awful. 3 Laid aside, as finished.
Rutherford's letters. 315
prove this to be true ; and dying men, if they could speak, would
make this good. Lay no more on the creatures than they are
able to carry. Lay your soul and your weights upon God. Make
him your only, only best-beloved. Your errand to this life is to
make sure an eternity of glory to j'^our soul, and to match your
soul with Christ. Your love, if it were more than all the love of
angels in one, is Christ's due : other things wortliy in themselves,
in respect of Christ, are not worth a windlestraw,' or a drink of
cold water. I doubt not but in death ye shall see all things more
distinctly, and that then the world shall bear no more bulk than
it is worth, and that then it shall couch and be contracted into
nothing ; and ye shall see Christ longer, higher, broader, and
deeper than ever he was. Oh blessed conquest, ^ to lose all things,
and to gain Christ ! I know not what ye have, if ye want Christ !
Alas ! how poor is your gain, if the earth were all yoms in free
heritage, holding it of no man of clay, if Christ be not yours ! Oh,
seek all midses,^ lay all oars in the water, put forth all your power,
and bend all your endeavors, to put away and part with all things,
that ye may gain and enjoy Christ. Try and search his word,
and strive to go a step above and beyond ordinary professors, and
resolve to sweat more and run faster than they do for salvation.
Men's mid-day, cold and Avise courses in godliness, and their
neighbor-like, cold and wise pace to Heaven, will cause many a
man to want his lodging at night, and to lie in the fields. I rec-
ommend Christ and his love to your seeking; and yourself to the
tender mercy and rich grace of our Lord.
Remember my love in Christ to your wife. I desire her to
learn to make her soul's anchor fast upon Christ himself Few
are saved. Let her consider what joy the smiles of God in Christ
will be, and what the love-kisses of sweet, sweet Jesus, and a wel-
come home to the new Jerusalem, from Christ's own mouth, will
be to her soul, when Christ will fold together the clay tent of her
body, and lay it by his hand'* for a time, till the fair morning of
the General Resurrection. I avouch before God, man, and angel,
that I have not seen, nor can imagine a lover to be comparable to
lovely Jesus ; 1 would not exchange or niffer* him with ten
heavens. If Heaven could be without him, what could we do
there? Grace, grace be with you.
Your soul's eternal well-wisher, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CC.
TO cassincarrie
Much honored Sir, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you. — I
have been too long in writing to you. I am confident that ye
1 A rush. A wznd/cs<raw is a withered stalk of crested (Ia;f's-tail wrass. 2 Acquisition
3 Means, * Lay it aside, as having served its purpose. s Barter.
316 Rutherford's letters.
have learned to prize Christ, and his love and favor, more than
ordinary professors, who scarce see Christ with half an eye, be-
cause their sight is taken up with eying and liking the beauty of
this over-gilded world, that promiseth fair to all its lovers, but in
the push of a trial, when need is, can give nothing but a fair
beguile.
I know that ye are not ignorant, that men come not to this
world, as some do to a market, to see and to be seen ; or as some
come, to behold a May-game, and only to behold, and to go home
again. Ye came hither to treat with God, and to tryste ' with
him in his Christ, for salvation to your soul, and to seek reconcil-
iation with an angry, wrathful God, in a covenant of peace made
to 3''ou in Christ ; and this is more than ordinary sport, or the
play, that the greatest part of the world give their heart unto.
And, therefore, worthy sir, I pray you by the salvation of your
soul, and by the mercy of God, and your compearance^ before
Christ, do this in sad earnest,^ and let not salvation be your by-
work,^ or your holy-day's task only, or a work by the way, for
men think that this may be done in three days' space on a feather
bed, when death and they are fallen in hands together, and that
with a word or two they shall make their soul-matters right.
Alas ! this is to sit loose and unsure in the matters of our salva-
tion. Nay, the seeking of this world, and of the glory of it, is but
an odd and by-errand that we jnay sHp, so being we make salva-
tion sure. Oh, when will men learn to be that^ heavenly-wise as
to divorce from, and free their soul of all idol-lovers, and make
Christ the only, only One, and trim and make ready their lamps,
while they have time and day ! How soon will this house skail,*
and the inn where the poor soul lodgeth fall to the earth ! How
soon will some few years pass away, and then, when the day is
ended, and this life's lease expired, what have men of world's
glory, but dreams and tlioughts? Oh, how blessed a thing is it to
labor for Christ, and to make him sure ! Know and try in time your
holding of him, and the rights^ and charters of Heaven, and upon
what terms ye have Christ and the Gospel, and what Christ is
worth in your estimation, and how lightly ye esteem other things,
aud how highly Christ ! I am sine, that if ye see him in his
beauty and glory, ye shall see him to be all things, and that in-
comparable jewel of gold that ye should seek, howbeit that ye should
sell, wadset,^ and forfeit your few years' portion of this life's
joys. Oh, happy soul for evermore, who can rightly compau^
this life with that long-lasting life to come, and can balance the
weighty glory of the one, with the light golden vanity of the
other ! The day of the liOrd is now near-hand, '■" and all men
shall come out in their blacks and whites, as they are : there shall
be no borrowed lying colors in that day, when Christ shall be
called Christ, and no longer nicknamed. Now men borrow Christ
1 Engage. - Appearance. 3 Sober earnest.
* Occasional work, after the stated work is finished. 5 So.
" Disperse. 7 Title-deeds. 8 Alienate. » Near.
Rutherford's letters. 317
and his white color, and tlie lustre, and farding ^ of Christianity ;
but how many counterfeit masks will be burnt in the day of God,
in the fire, that sliall burn the earth and the works that are on it?
And howbeit Christ have the hardest part of it now, yet in the
presence of my Lord, whom I serve in the spirit, I would not niffer*
or exchange Christ's prison, bonds, and chains, Avith the gold
chains and lordly rents, and smiling and happy-like ^ heavens of
the men of this world. I am far from thoughts of repenting, be-
cause of my losses and bonds for Christ. I wish that all my ad-
versaries were as I am, except my bonds. Worthy, worthy,
worthy for evermore, is Christ, for whom Ave should suffer pains
like Hell's pains ; far more the short hell that the saints of God
have in this life. Sir, I wish that your soul may be more ac-
quainted with the sweetness of Christ.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his only Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCI.
TO THE LADY CARDONESS.
Mistress, — ^I beseech you in the Lord Jesus, to make every
day more and more of Christ ; and try your growth in the grace
of God, and what new ground ye win daily on * corruption : for
travellers are day by day either advancing farther on, and nearer
home, or else they go not right about to compass their journey.
I think still the better and better of Christ : alas! I know not
where to set him, I would so fain have him high ! I cannot set
heavens above heavens, till I were tired with numbering, and set
him upon the highest step and story of the highest of them all ;
but I wish I could make him great through the world, suppose
my loss, and pain, and shame were set under the soles of his feet,
that he might stand upon me.
I request that you faint not, because this world and ye are at
yea and nay, and because this is not a home that laugheth upon
you. The wise Lord, who knoweth you, will have it so, because
he casteth a net for your love, to catch it and gather it in to him-
self: therefore, bear patiently the loss of children, and burdens,
and other discontentments, either within or without the house : —
your Lord in them is seeking you, and seek ye him. Let none
be your love and choice, and the flower of your delights, but your
Lord Jesus. Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath
not made it your portion ; for it will not fall to you to get two por-
tions, and to rejoice twice, and to be happy twice, and to have an
upper heaven, and an under heaven too. Christ our Lord, and
his saints were not so; and, therefore, let go your grip^ of this
1 Decoration. 2 Barter. 3 Apparently happy.
* How fast you are gaining on. 5 Hold.
318 Rutherford's letters.
life, and of the good things of it: I hope that your heaven grow-
eth not hereaway.^ Learn daily both to possess and miss Clirisl,
in his secret bridegroom-srniles. He must go and come, because
his infinite wisdom thinketh it best for you. We shall be togetiier
one day. We shall not need to borrow light from sun, moon, or
candle. There shall be no complaints on either side in Heaven.
There shall be none there, but he and we, the Bridegroom and
the Bride ; devils, temptations, trials, desertions, losses, sad hearts,
pain, and death, shall be all put out of play ; and the Devil must
give up his office of tempting. Oh, blessed is the soul, whose hope
hath a face looking straight out to that day ! It is not our part
to make a treasure here; anything, under the covering of Heav-
en, which we can build upon, is but ill ground and a sandy foun-
dation. Every good thing, except God, wanteth a bottom, and
cannot stand its lone;'^ how then can it bear the weight of us?
Let us not lay a load on a windlestraw ;^ there shall nothing find*
my weight, or found my happiness, but God. I know that all
created power would sink vuider me, if I should lean down upon
it ; and, therefore, it is better to rest on God, than to sink or fall ;
and we weak souls must have a bottom and a being-place,^ for we
cannot stand our lone ; ^ let us then be wise in our choice, and
choose and wale'' our own blessedness, which is to trust in the
Lord. Each one of us hath a whore and idol, besides our Hus-
band, Christ: but it is our folly to divide our narrow and little
love ; it will not serve two. It is best then to hold its whole and
together, and to give it to Christ ; for then we get double interest
for our love, when we lend it to, and lay it out upon Christ ; and
we are sure besides, that the stock cannot perish.
Now I can say no more. Remember me. I have God's right
to that people ; howbeit by the violence of men, stronger than I, I
am banished from you, and chased away. The Lord give you
mercy in the day of Christ. It may be that God will clear my
sky again ; howbeit there is small appearance of my deliverance :
but let him do with me what seemeth good in his own eyes. I
am his clay, let my Potter frame and fashion me as he pleaseth.
Grace be with you.
Your lawful, and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER ecu.
TO SIBYLLA MACADAM,
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I can bear
witness in my bonds, that Christ is still the longer the better, and
no worse, yea, inconceivably better than he is or can be called.
' In this present state. 2 By itselF alone. 3 A withered stalk of grass.
* Feci. 5 Place of existence. « By ourselves alone.
■^ Carefully select.
Rutherford's letters. 319
I think it half a heaven, to have my fill of the smell of his sweet
breath, and to sleep in the arms of Christ my Lord, with his left
hand under my head, and his right hand embracing me. There
is no great reckoning to be made of the withering of my flower,
in comparison of the foul and manifest wrongs done to Christ ;
nay, let never the dew of God lye upon my branches again, let the
bloom' fall from my joy, and let it wither, let the Almighty blow
out my candle, so being the Lord might be great among Jews and
Gentiles, and his oppressed Church delivered. Let (Christ fare
well, suppose I should eat ashes. I know that he must be sweet
himself, when his cross is so sweet. And it is the part of us all,
if we marry himself, to jnarry the crosses, losses, and reproaches,
also, that follow him ; for mercy followeth Christ's cross. His
prison for beauty is made of marble and ivory ; his chains, that
are laid on his prisoners, are golden chains ; and the sighs of the
prisoners of hope are perfumed with comforts, the like whereof
cannot be bred or found on this side of sun and moon. Follow
on after his love ; tire not of Christ, but come in, and see his
beauty and excellency, and feed your soul upon Christ's sweet-
ness. This world is not yours, neither would I have your heaven
made of such metal as mire and clay. Ye have the choice and
wale "^ of all lovers in Heaven or out of Heaven, when ye have
Christ, the only delight of God his Father. Climb up the moun-
tain with joy, and faint not ; for time will cut oJf the men who
pursue Christ's followers. Our best things here have a worm in
them ; our joys besides God, in the inner half, are but woes and
sorrows : — Christ, Christ is that which our love and desires can
sleep sweetly and rest safely upon.
Now the very God of peace establish you in Christ. Help a
prisoner with your prayers, and entreat that our Lord would be
pleased to visit me with a sight of his beauty in his house, as he
has sometimes done. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCni
TO THE LAIRD OF CALLY.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be (o you. — I have
been too long, I confess, in writing to you. My suit now to you
in paper, since I have no access to speak to you, as formerly, is,
that ye would lay the foundation sure in your youth. When ye
begin to seek Christ, try, I pray you, upon what terms ye cove-
nant to follow him, and lay your accounts what it may cost you ;
that neither suuuner nor winter, nor well nor wo, may cause you
change your Master, Christ. Keep fair to him, and be honest and
' Blossom. 2 The very best choice that can be made.
320 Rutherford's letters.
faithful, that he find not a crack in yon. Surely ye are now in
the throng of temptations. When youth is come to its fairest
bloom, then the Devil, and the lusts of a deceiving world, and sin
are upon horseback, and follow with up-sails. If this were not so,
Paul needed not to have written to a sanctified and lioly youth,
Timothy, (a faithful preaclier of the Gospel,) to flee the lusts of
youth. Give Christ your virgin love ; you cannot put your love
and heart into a better hand. Oh ! if ye knew him, and saw
his beauty, — your love, your heart, your desires would close with
him, and cleave to him. Love, by nature, when it seeth, cannot
but cast out its spirit and strength upon amiable objects, and good
things, and things love-worthy ; — and what fairer thing than
Christ? O fair sun, and fair moon, and fair stars, and fair flow-
ers, and fair roses, and fair lilies, and fair creatures; but O ten
thousand thousand times fairer Lord Jesus ! Alas, I wronged
him in making the comparison this way ! O black sun and
moon, but O fair Lord Jesus ! O black flowers, and black lilies and
roses, but O fair, fair, ever fair Lord Jesus! O all fair things,
black and deformed without beauty, when ye are beside that fair-
est Lord, Jesus ! O black Heaven, but O fair Christ ! O black
angels, but surpassingly fair Lord Jesus ! I would seek no more
to make me happy for evermore, but a thorough and clear sight
of the beauty of Jesus, my Lord. Let my eyes enjoy his fairness,
and stare him forever in the face, and I have all that can be
wished. Get Christ rather than gold or silver; seek Christ, how-
beit ye should lose all things for him.
They take their marks by the moon,^ and look asquint, in look-
ing to fair Christ, who resolve for the world and their ease, and
for their honor, and court, and credit, or for fear of losses and a
sore skin, to turn their backs upon Christ and his truth, Alas,
how many blind eyes and squint lookers look this day in Scotland
upon Christ's beauty, and they see a spot in Christ's fair face!
Alas, they are not worthy of Christ, who look this way upon him,
and see no beauty in him why they should desire him ! God
send me my fill of his beauty, if it be possible that my soul can be
full of his beauty here : but much of Christ's beauty needeth not
abate the eager appetite of a soul, (sick of love for himself,) to see
him in the other world, where he is seen as he is.
I am glad, with all my heart, that ye have given your greenest
morning-age to this Lord Jesus. Hold on, and weary not ; faint
not, resolve upon suffering for Christ ; but fear not ten days' tribu-
lation, for Christ's sour cross is sugared with comforts, and hath a
taste of Christ himself I esteem it to be my glory, my joy, and
my crown, and I bless him for this honor, to be yoked with Christ,
and married to Him, in suffering, who, therefore, was born, and,
therefore, came into the world, that he might bear witness to the
Truth. Take pains, above all things, for salvation ; ,for without
running, fighting, sweating, wrestling. Heaven is not taken. Oh,
happy soul, that crosseth nature's stomach, and delighteth to gain
1 To take one's marks by the moon, to be changeable.
Rutherford's letters. 321
that fair garland and crown of glory ! What a feckless ' loss is it
for you, to go through this wilderness, and never taste sin's sugar-
ed pleasures ! What poorer is a soul to want pride, lust, love of
the world, and the vanities of this vain and worthless world?
Nature hath no cause to weep at the want of such toys as these.
Esteem it your gain to be an heir of glory. Oh, but that is an
eye-look to a fair rent ! The very hope of Heaven, under troubles,
is like wind and sails to the soul, and like wings, when the feet
come out of the snare. Oh, for what stay we here ? Up, up,
after our Lord Jesus ! This is not our rest, nor our dwelling.
What have we to do in this prison except only to take meat and
house-room in it for a time ?
Grace, grace be with you.
Your soul's well-wisher, and Christ's prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCIY.
TO WILLIAM GORDON, AT KENMURE.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I have
been long in answering your letter, which came in good time to
me. It is my aim and hearty desire, that my furnace, which is
of the Lord's kindling, may sparkle '^ lire upon standers-by, to the
warming of their hearts with God's love. The very dust that
falleth from Christ's feet, his old ragged clothes, his knotty and
black cross, are sweeter to me than kings' golden crowns, and
their time-eaten pleasures. I should be a liar and false witness,
if I would not give my Lord Jesus a fair testimonial ^ with my
whole soul. My word, I know, will not heighten him : he need-
eth not such props under his feet, to raise his glory high : but, oh,
that I could raise him the height of Heaven, and the breadth and
length of ten heavens, in the estimation of all his young lovers !
for we have all shapen Christ but too narrow and too short, and
formed conceptions of his love in our conceit, very unworthy of it.
Oh, that men were taken and catched with his beauty and fair-
ness ! they would give over playing with idols, in which there is
not half room for the love of one soul to expatiate itself ; and
man's love is but heart-hungered in gnawing upon bare bones, and
sucking at dry breasts. It is well wared* they want who will
not come to Him who hath a world of love, and goodness, and
bounty for all. We seek to thaw our frozen hearts at the cold
smoke of the short-timed creature, and our souls gather neither
heat nor life, nor light ; for these cannot give to us what they
have not in themselves. Oh, that we coukl thrust in through
these thorns, and this throng of bastard-loveis, and be ravished
and sick of love for Christ ! We should find some footing, and
some room, and sweet ease for our tottering and thoughtless souls
' Trifling. 2 Emit sparks of. 3 Certificate, * Well-merited.
21
322 Rutherford's letters.
in our Lord. I wish it were in my power, after this clay, to cry
down all love but the love of Christ, and to cry down all gods but
Christ, all saviours but Christ, all well-beloveds but Christ, and
all soul-suitors, all lote-beggars but Christ.
Ye complain, that ye want a mark of the sound work of grace
and love in your soul. For answer, consider for your satisfaction
(till God send more) 1 John iii. 14. And as your complaint of
deadness and doublings, Christ will, I hope, take your deadness
and you together. They are bodies full of holes, running boils,
and broken bones which need mending, that Christ the physician
taketli up: whole vessels are not for the Mediator Christ's art ;
publicans, sinners, whores, harlots, are ready market-wares for
Christ. The only thing that will bring sinners within a cast of
Christ's drawing arm, is, that which ye write of, some feeling of
death and sin, that bringeth forth complaints ; and, therefore, out
of sense complain more and be more acquaint' with all the
cramps, stitches, and soul-swoonings that trouble you. The more
pain and the more night-watching, and the moe fevers, the better.
A soul bleeding to death, till Christ were sent for, and cried for in
all haste, to come and stem the blood, and close up the hole in
the wound, with his own hand and balm, were a very good dis-
ease, when many are dying of a whole heart. We have all too
little of hell-pain and terrors that way : nay, God send me such a
hell, as Christ hath promised to make a heaven of Alas, I am
not come that^ far on in the way, as to say in sad earnest.,^ "Lord
Jesus, great and sovereign physician, here is a pained patient for
thee." But the thing that we mistake is the want of victory.
We hold that to be the mark of one that hath no grace : nay, say
I, the want of fighting were a mark of no grace ; but I shall not
say the want of victory is such a mark. If my fire and the Dev-
il's water make crackling like thunder in the air, I am the less
feared ; for where there is fire, it is Christ's part, which I lay and
bind upon him, to keep in the coal, and to pray the Father that
my faith fail not, if I in the mean time be wrestling, and doing,
and fighting, and mourning: for prayer putteth not Paul's devil — -
the thorn in the flesh, and the messenger of Satan — to the door at
first ; but our Lord will have them to try every one, and let Paul
fend for^ himself, by God's help, God keeping the stakes, and mod-
erating the play. And ye do well not to doubt, if the ground-
stone^ be sure, but to try if it be so: for there is great odds be-
tween doubting that we have grace, and trying if we have grace ;
— the former may be sin, but the latter is good. We are but loose
in trying our free-holding of Christ, and making sure work of
Christ. Holy fear is a searching of the camp, that there be no
enemy within our bosom to betray us, and a seeing that all be
fast and sure : for I see many leak}'^ vessels fair before the wind,
and professors who take their conversion upon trust, and they go
on securely, and see not the under-water," till a storm sink them.
1 Acquainted. 2 So. 3 Sober earnest.
* Sliill for. 5 Foundation. « Bilge-water.
Rutherford's letters. 323
Each man had need twice a day, and oftener, to be riped» and
searched with candle?.
Pray for me, that the Lord would give me house-room again,
to hold a candle to this dark world.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCV.
TO MARGARET FULLERTON.
Mistress, — -Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I am glad
that ever ye did cast your love on Christ : fasten more and more
love every day on him. Oh, if ^ I had a river of love, a sea of
love, that would never go dry, to bestow upon him ! But alas,
the pity ! Christ hath beauty for me, but I have not love for him.
Oh, what pain is it, to see Christ in his beauty, and then to want
a heart and love for him ! but I see, that want we must, till Christ
lend us, never to be paid again. Oh, that he would empty these
vaults, and lower houses, of these poor souls, of these bastard and
base lovers, which we follow ! and verily, I see no object in
heaven or in earth, that I could ware ^ this much of love upon,
that I have upon Christ. Alas ! that clay, and time, and shadows
run away with our love, which is ill spent upon any but upon
Christ. Each fool at the day of judgment will seek back his love
from the creatures, when he shall see them all in a fair fire ; but
they shall prove irresponsal* debtors : and, therefore, it is best
here, that we look ere we leap, and look ere we love.
I find now under his cross, that I would fain give him more
than I have to give him, if giving were in my power : but I rather
wish him my heart than give him it : — except he take it, and put
himself in possession of it, (for I hope he hath a market-right to
me, since he hath ransomed me,) 1 see not how Christ can have
me. Oh, that he would be pleased to be more homely'' with my
soul's love, and to come in to my soul, and take his own ! but
when he goeth away and hideth himself, all is to me that I had
of Christ, as if it had fallen into the sea-bottom. Oh, that I
should be so fickle in my love, as to love him only by the eyes and
the nose ! (hat is, to love him only in as far as fond and foolish
sense carrictli me, and no more : — and when I see not, and smell
not, and touch not, then I have all to seek. I cannot love per-
queer® nor rejoice perqueer :* but this is our weakness, till we be
at home, and shall have aged men's stomachs to bear Christ's
love.
1 Tlioronghly examined, as it were by turning him inside out, as is done to a pef-
son's pockets when they are searched for stolen goods. 2 Oh, that.
3 Expend. * Irresponsible. 5 Familiar. « Perfectly, exactly.
324 Rutherford's letters.
Pray for me, that our Lord would bring me back to you, with
a new blessing of the Gospel of Christ. I forget not you.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCVI.
FOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE, MY LADY VISCOUNTESS
OP KENMURE.
My very NOBLE AND DEAR Lady, — Gracc, mercy, and peace
be to you. — The Lord hath brought me safely to Aberdeen. I
have gotten lodging in the hearts of all I meet with. No face
that hath not smiled upon me ; only the indwellers of this town
are dry, cold, and general. They consist of Papists, and men of
Gallio's metal, firm in no religion ; and it is counted no wisdom
here to countenance a confined and silenced minister ; but the
shame of Christ's cross shall not be my shame, dueensberry's at-
tempt seemeth to sleep, because the Bishop of Galloway was
pleased to say to the Treasurer that I had committed treason ;
which word blunted the Treasurer's borrowed zeal. So I thank
God, who will not have me to anchor my soul upon false ground,
or upon flesh and blood ; it is better it be fastened within the veil.
I find my old challenges ^ reviving again, and my love often jeal-
ous ^ of Christ's love, when I look upon my own guiltiness. And
I verily think that the world hath too soft an opinion of the gate^
to Heaven, and that many shall get a blind and sad beguile* for
Heaven ; for there is more ado than a cold and frozen " Lord,
Lord." It must be a way narrower and straiter than we conceive,
for the righteous shall scarcely be saved. It were good to take a
more judicious view of Christianity ; for I have been doubting, if
ever I knew any more of Christianity than the letters of the name.
I will not lie on my Lord. I find often much joy, and unspeak-
able comfort, in His sweet presence, who sent me hither ; and I
trust, this house of my pilgrimage shall be my palace, my garden
of delights ; and that Christ will be kind to poor sold Joseph, who
is separated from his brethren. I would be sometimes too hot,
and too joyful, if the heart breaks at the remembrance of sin, and
fair, fair feast-days with King Jesus, did not cool me, and sour my
sweet joys. Oh! how sweet is the love of Christ! and how wise
is that love I But let faith frist^ and trust a while ; it is no reason
sons should take offence, that the father giveth them not twice a
year hire, as he doth to hired servants : better that God's heirs
live upon hope, than upon hire.
Madam, your Ladyship knoweth what Christ hath done, to
have all your love ; and that he alloweth not his love upon your
1 Self-accusations. 2 Suspicious. ' Way.
* Beguilement. 5 Postpone,
Rutherford's letters. 325
dear child.' Keep good quarters with Christ in your love, I
verily think that Christ hath said, I must needs-force'^ have Jean
Campbell for myself : and he hath laid many oars in the water,
to fish and hunt home-over ^ your heart to Heaven : let him have
his prey ; he will think you well won, when he hath gotten you.
It is good to have recourse often, and to have the door open to
our strong-hold ; for the sword of the Lord, the sword of the Lord,
is for Scotland ; and yet two or three berries shall be left in the top
of the olive-tree.
If a word can do my brother good in his distress, I know your
Ladyship will be willing and ready to speak it, and more also.
Now the only wise God, and your only, only One, He who dwelt
in the bush, be with you.
I write many kisses and many blessings in Christ to your dear
child : the blessings of his father's God, the blessings due to the
fatherless and the widow, be yours and his.
Your Ladyship's, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
POSTSCRIPT.
Madam, be pleased, at a fit time, to try my Lord of Lorn's mind,
if his Lordship would be pleased, that I dedicate another work
against the Arminians to his honorable name. For howbeit I
would compare no patron to his Lordship, and though I have suf-
ficient experience of his love, yet it is possible that his Lordship
may think it not expedient at this time ; but I expect your Lady-
ship's answer, and I hope that your Ladyship will be plain.
LETTER CCVII.
FOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE, MY LADY VISCOUNTESS
OF KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship. — I
long to hear from you, and that dear child ; and for that cause I
trouble you with letters.
I am for the present thinking the sparrows and the swallows,
that build their nests in Anwoth, blessed birds. The Lord hath
made all my congregation desolate. Alas, I am oft at this, "Show
me wherefore thou contendest with me." O earth, earth, cover
not the violence done to me. I know it is my faithless jealousy
in this my dark night, to take a friend for a foe ; yet hath not my
Lord made any plea^ with me. I chide with him, but he giveth
me fair words. Seeing my sins and the sins of my youth deserv-
ed strokes, how am I obhged to my Lord, who amongst many
1 He alloweth not the love which is his clue to be given to the child.
2 Of necessity. 3 Homewards, * Controversy.
326 Rutherford's letters.
crosses, hath given me a waled ' and chosen cross, to suffer for the
name of my Lord Jesus ! Since I must have chains, he would
put golden chains on me, watered" over with many consolations ;
seeing I must have sorrow, (for I have sinned, O Preserver of
mankind!) he hath waled ^ out for me joyful sorrow, — honest,
spiritual, and glorious sorrow. My crosses come through mercy
and love's fingers, from the kind heart of a brother, Christ my
Lord ; and, therefore, they must be sweet and sugared. Oh what
am I! such a lump, such a rotten mass of sin, to be counted a
bairn worthy to be nurtured,^ and stricken with the best and most
honorable rod in my Father's house, the golden rod, wherewith
my eldest brother, the Lord, heir of the inheritance, and his faith-
ful witnesses, were stricken withal !
It would be thought that I should be thankful and rejoice : but
my beholders and lovers in Christ have eyes of flesh, and have
made my one to be ten, and I am somebody in their books. My
witness is above, that there are armies of thoughts within me
saying the contrary, and laughing at their wide mistake. If my
inner side were seen, my corruption Avould appear ; I would lose
and forfeit love and respect at the hands of any that love God ;
pity would come in the place of these. Oh, if'' they would yet
see me lower, and my well-beloved Christ higher ! I would I had
grace and strength of my Lord, to be joyful and contentedly glad
and cheerful, that God's glory might ride, and openly triumph be-
fore the view of men, angels, devils, earth, Heaven, Hell, sun,
moon, and all God's creatures, upon my pain and sufferings, —
providing always, that I felt not the Lord's hatred and displeasure.
But I fear that his fair glory be but soiled in coming through
such a foul creature as I am. If I could be the sinless matter of
glorifying Clirist, howbeit to my loss, pain, sufferings, and extrem-
ity of wretchedness, how would my soul rejoice ? But I am far
from this. He knoweth, that his love hath made me a prisoner,
and bound me hand and foot ; but it is my pain, that I cannot
win ^ loose, nor get loose hands, and a loosed heart, to do service
to my Lord Jesus, and to speak his love. 1 confess that I have
neither tongue nor pen to do it. Christ's love is more than my
praises, and above the thoughts of the angel Gabriel, and all the
mighty hosts that stand before the throne of God. I think shame,^
I am sad and cast down, to think, that my foul tongue, and my
polluted heart, sliould come in to help others to sing aloud the
praises of the love of Christ : all I dow'' do, is to wish the choir to
grow throng,^ and to grow in the extolling of Christ. Wo, wo is
me, for my guiltiness seen to few ! My hidden wounds, still bleed-
ing within me, are before the eyes of no man ; but if my sweetest
Lord Jesus were not still bathing, washing, balming, healing, and
binding them up, they should rot, and break out to my shame.
I know not what will be the end of my suffering. I have seen
but the one side of my cross ; what will be the other side, He
1 Selected. 2 Plated. 3 Subjected to discipline. ^ Oh, tliat.
s Get. 6 Am ashamed. "> Am able. ^ Crowded.
Rutherford's letters. 327
knoweth, who liatli his fire in Zion. Let him lead me, if it were
through Hell. I tliank my Lord, that my on-waiting and holding
my peace as I do, to see what more Christ will do to me, is my
joy. Oh, if* my ease, joy, pleasure for evermore, were laid in
wadset^ and in pledge, to huy praises to Christ! But I am far
from this. It is easy for a poor soul, in the deep debt of Clnist's
love, to spit farther than he dow^ leap or jump, and to feed upon
broad wishes that Christ may be honored — but in performance I
am stark nought. I have nothing, nothing to give Christ but
poverty: except he would comprise^ and arrest my soul, and my
love, (oh, oh, if* he would do that !) I have nothing for him. He
may indeed seize upon a dyvour's'' person, soul and body : but he
hath no goods for Christ to meddle with : but how glad would my
soul be, if he would forfeit my love,^ and never give it me again.
Madam, I would be glad to hear that Christ's claim to you
were still the more, and that you were still going forward, and
that you were nearer him. I dow not'^ honor Christ my5»elf, but
I wish all others to make sail to Christ's house. I would I
could invite you to go into yoiu' well-beloved's house-of-wine,
and that upon my word, — you would tlien see a new mystery of
love in Christ that you never saw before.
I am somewhat encouraged in that your Ladyship is not dry
and cold to Christ's prisoner, as some are. I hope it is put up in my
Master's count-book. I am not nnich grieved, that my jealous
husband break in pieces my idols, that either they dare not, or
will not do for me. My master needeth not their help, but they
had need to be that serviceable as to help him. Madam, I have
been that bold as to put j'ou and that sweet child into the prayers
of Mr. Andrew Cant, Mr. James Martin, the Lady Leyes, and
some others in this country that truly love Christ. 13e pleased to
let me hear how the child is. The blessiiigs that came upon the
head of Joseph, and on the top of the head of him who was sepa-
rated from his brethren, and the good will of Him who dwelt in
the bush, be seen upon him and you. Madam, I can say, by
some little experience, more now than before of Christ to you. I
am still upon this, that if you seek, there is a pose,^ a hidden
treasure, and a gold mine in Christ, you never yet saw. Then
come and sec.
Thus reconmnending you to God's dearest mercy, I rest,
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus, at all obedience,
S. R.
My Lady Marischall is very kind to me, and her son also.
Aberdeen, June 17, 1G37.
I Oh, that. 2 AUenated.
3 That is, to profess more than he is able to do. •» Attach.
5 Debtor's. ^ Seize upon my love as a forfeiture to himself.
7 Am not able. 8 Hoard.
338 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCVm.
TO JOHN HENDERSON, IN RUSCO.
Loving Friend, — I earnestly desire your salvation. — Know
the Lord, and seek Christ. You have a soul that cannot die ; see
for a lodging for your poor soul ; for that house of clay will fall —
Heaven or nothing, either Christ or nothing. Use prayer in your
house, and set your thoughts often upon death and judgment. It
is dangerous to be loose in the matter of your salvation. Few
are saved ; men go to Heaven in ones and twos, and the whole
world lieth in sin. Love your enemies, and stand by the truth
which I have taught you, in all things. Fear not men, but let
God be your fear. Your time Avill not be long ; make the seeking
of Christ your daily task ; ye may, when ye are in tlie fields,
speak to God. Seek a broken heart for sin ; for without that
there is no meeting with Christ. I speak this to your wife, as
well as to yourself I desire your sister, in her fears and doubt-
ings, to fasten her grips ^ on Christ's love : I forbid her to doubt,
for Christ loveth her, and hath her name written in his book ; her
salvation is fast coming ; — Christ, her Lord, is not slow in coming,
nor slack in his promise.
Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CCIX.
TO MR. ALEXANDER COLVILLE, OF BLAIR.
Much honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I
would desire to know how my Lord took my letter, which I sent
him, and how he is. I desire nothing, but that he may be fast
and honest to my royal Master and King.
I am well every way, all praise to Him in whose books I must
stand forever as his debtor ! — only my silence paineth me. I had
one joy out of Heaven, next to Christ my Lord, and that was to
preach him to this faithless generation ; and they have taken that
from me ; it was to me as the poor man's one eye, and they have
put out that eye. I know that the violence done to me, and his
poor bereft bride, is come up before the Lord ; and, suppose that I
see not the other side of my cross, or what my Lord will bring out
of it, yet I believe that the vision shall not tarry, and tha| Christ
is on his journey for my deliverance : he goeth not slowl)?^, but
passeth over ten mountains at one stride ; in the mean time, I am
pained with his love, because I want real possession. When
1 Grasp.
Rutherford's letters. 329
Christ Cometh, he stayeth not long ; but certainly, the blowing of
his breath upon a poor soul is heaven upon earth ; and when the
wind turneth into tlie North, and he goeth away, I die, till the
wind change into the West, and he visit his prisoner. But he
holdeth me not often at his door. I am richly repaid for suffering
for him. Oh, if ^ all Scotland were as I am, except my bonds !
Oh, what pain I have, because I cannot get him praised by my
sufferings ! Oh, that Heaven, within and without, and the earth
were paper, and all the rivers, fountains, and seas were ink, and I
able to write all the paper within and without, fidl of his praises,
and love and excellency, to be read by man and angel ! Nay,
this is little ; I owe my heaven to Christ ; and to desire, howbeit
I should never enter in at the gates of the New Jerusalem, to send
my love and my praises over the wall to Christ. Alas, that time
and days lye betwixt him and me, and adjourn our meeting ! It
is my part to cry, " Oh, when will the night be past and the day
dawn, that Ave shall see one another !"
Be pleased to remember my service to my Lord, to whom I
wrote ; and show him that, for his affection to me, I cannot but
pray for him, and earnestly desire that Christ miss him not out of
the roll of those who are his witnesses, now when his kingly hon-
or is called in question. It is his honor to hold up Christ's royal
train, and to be an instrument to hold the crown upon Christ's
head. Show him, because I love his true honor and standing,
that this is my earnest desire for him.
Now I bless you ; and the prayers of Christ's prisoner come
upon you ; and His sweetest presence whom ye serve in the
Spirit, accompany you.
Yours, at all obliged obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 23, 1637.
LETTER CCX.
TO HIS REVEREND, AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. JOHN NEVAY.
My REVEREND, AND DEAR BROTHER, — Grace, mcrcy. and
peace be to you. — I have exceedingly many whom I write to, else
I would be kinder in paper.
I rejoice that my sweet Master hath any to back him. Thick,
thick " may my royal King's court be. Oh, that his Kingdom
might grow ! It were my joy to have his house full of guests.
Except that I have some cloudy days, for the most part I have
a king's life with Christ. He is all perfumed with the powders
of the merchant : he hath a king's face, and a king's smell : his
chariot, wherein he carrieth his poor prisoner, is of the wood of
Lebanon, it is paved with love. Is not that soft ground to walk
or lye on ? I think better of Christ than ever I did : my thoughts
1 Oh, that. 2 Thronged, thronged.
330 Rutherford's letters.
of his love grow and swell on me. I never write to any of him,
so much as 1 have felt. Oh, if ' I could write a book of Christ,
and of iiiri love ! Suppose I were made white ashes, and burnt
for tiiis same truth, that men count but as knots of straw, it were
my gain, if my ashes could proclaim the worth, excellency, and
love of my Lord Jesus. There is much telling of Christ: I give
over the weighing of him ; Heaven would not be the beam of a
balance to weigh him in. What eyes be on me, or what wind of -^
tongues be on me, I care not : let me stand in this stage in the
fool's coat, and act a fool's part to the rest of this nation ; if I can
set my Well-beloved on high, and witness fair for him, a fig for
their hosanna. If I can roll jnyself in a lap of Christ's garment,
I shall lye there, and laugh at the thoughts of dying bits of clay.
Brother, we have cause to weep for our Harlot-mother ; her
husband is sending her to Rome's brothel-house, which is the gate ^
she liketh well. Yet I persuade you that there shall be a fair
after-growth for Christ in Scotland, atid that this Church shall
sing the Bridegroom's welcome-home again to his own house. —
The worms shall eat them first, ere they cause Christ to take
good-night at Scotland. 1 am here assaulted with the doctor's
guns, but I bless the Father of lights, that they draw not blood of
truth. I find no lodging in the hearts of natural men, who are
cold friends to my Master.
I pray you, remember my love to that gentleman, A. C. My
heart is knit to him, because he and I have one Master. Remem-
ber my bonds, and present my service to my Lord and my Lady.
I wish that Christ may be dearer to them than he is to many in
their place.
Grace be with you.
Aberdeen, July 5, 1637.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
LETTER CCXL
TO MY LADY BOYD
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — Few, I believe,
know the pain and torment of Christ's fristed ^ love : fristing^ with
Christ's presence is a matter of torment. 1 know a poor soul that
would lay all oars in the water for a banquet or feast of Christ's
love. I cannot think, but it must be up-taking^ and sweet, to
see the white and red of Christ's fair face ; for he is white and
ruddy, and the Chiefest among ten thousand, (Cant. v. 10.) I am
sure, that must be a well-made face of liis ; Heaven must be in his
visage ; glory, glory for evermore must sit on his countenance.
I dare not curse the mask and covering that are on his face ; but
1 Oh, that. 2 Road.
3 Having the possession and enjo)'mpnt postponed.
* Postponing possession and enjoyment. 5 Exhilarating.
Rutherford's letters. 331
oh, if ^ there were a hole in it. ! Oh, if God would tear the mask !
Fy, fy upon us, we were never ashamed till now that we do not
proclaim our pining and languishing for him. I am sure that
never tongue spake of Christ as he is. I am still of that mind,
and still will be, that we wrong and undervalue that holy, holy
One, in having such short and shallow thoughts of his weight and
worth. Oh, if I could have but leave, to stand beside, and see
the Father weigh Christ the Son, if it were possible ! But how
every one of them comprehendeth another, we, who have eyes of
clay, cannot comprehend ; but it is pity for evermore, and more
than shame, that such an one as Christ should sit in Heaven his
lone 2 for us. To go up thither once-errand ^ and on purpose to
see, were no small glory. Oh, that he would strike out windows,
and fair and great lights in this old house, this fallen-down soul,
and then set tlie soul near-hand^ Christ, that the rays and beams
of light, and the soul-delighting glances of the fair, fair Godhead,
might shine in at the windows, and fill the house ! A fairer, and
more near, and direct sight of Christ would make room for his
love ; for we are but pinched and straitened in his love. Alas, it
were easy to measure and weigh the love that we have for Christ,
by inches and ounces ! Alas, that we should love by measure and
weight, and not rather have floods and feasts of Christ's love !
Oh, that Christ would break down the old narrow vessels of these
narrow and ebb ^ souls, and make fair, deep, wide, and broad souls,
to hold a sea and a full tide, flowing over all its banks of Christ's
love !
Oh, that the Almighty would give me my request ! that I might
see Christ come to his temple again, (as he is minting,^ and, it is
like, minding to do,) and if '^ the land were humbled. The judg-
ments threatened, are with this reservation, I know, "If ye will
turn and repent." Oh, what a heaven would we have on earth,
to see Scotland's moon like the light of the sun, and Scotland's
sun-light seven-fold, like the light of seven days, in the day that
the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the
stroke of their wounds ! (Isa. xxx. 26.) Alas, that we will not
pull and draw Christ to his old tents again, to come and feed
among the lilies, till the day break, and the shadows flee away !
Oh, that the nobles would go on, in the strength and courage of
the Lord, to bring our lawful King, Jesus, home again ! I am
persuaded that he siiall return again in glory to this land ; but
happy were they who would help to convoy** him to his sanctu-
ary, and set him again up upon the Mercy-seat, betwixt the Cher-
ubim. "O Sun, return to darkened Britain! O Fairest among
all the sons of men, O most excellent One, come home again ;
come home and win the praises and blessings of the mourners in
Zion, the prisoners of hope, that wait for thee ! I know that he
can also triumph in suffering, and weep and reign, and die and
1 Oh that. 2 Ry himself alone. 3 On the sole errand.
< Near. 5 sFiallow. 6 Intimating, by signs, an intention.
7 That. 8 Accompany on the way.
332 Rutherford's letters.
triumph, and remain in prison and yet subdue his enemies : but
how happy were I to see the coronation-day of Christ ; to see his
Mother, who bare him, put the crown upon his head again, and
cry with shouting till the earth should ring, " Let Jesus, our King,
Hve and reign for evermore."
Grace, grace be with your Ladyship.
Your Ladyship's at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCXIL
TO WILLIAM GLENDINNING.
Dear Brother, — Ye are heartily welcome to that honor, that
Christ hath made common to us both, which is to suffer for his
name. Verily I think it mj^ garland and crown ; and if the Lord
should ask of me my blood and life for this cause, I would gladly,
in his strength, pay due debt to Christ's honor and glory, in that
kind. Acquaint yourself with Christ's love, and ye shall not miss
to find new golden mines and treasures in Christ ; nay, truly, we
but stand beside Christ, we go not in to him to take our fill of him.
But, if he would do two things, — 1. Draw the curtains, and make
bare his holy face ; and then, 2. Clear our dim and bleared eyes,
to see his beauty and glory, he should find many lovers. I would
seek no more happiness, than a sight of him so near-hand,' as to
see, hear, smell, and touch, and embrace him : but oh, closed doors,
and veils, and curtains, and thick clouds hold me in pain, while I
find the sweet burning of his love, that many waters cannot
quench ! Oh, what sad hours have 1, when I think, that the love
of Christ scaureth "^ at me, and bloweth by me ! If my Lord Jesus
would come to bargaining for his love, I think he might make
the price himself. I should not refuse ten thousand years in Hell,
to have a wide soul enlarged and made wider, that I might be
exceedingly, even to the running-over, filled with his love. Oh,
what am I to love such a One, or to be loved by that high and
lofty One ! I think the angels may blush to look upon him ; and
what am I to defile such infinite brightness with my sinful eyes !
Oh, that Christ would come near, and stand still, and give me
leave to look upon him ! — -for to look seemeth the poor man's priv-
ilege, since he may, for nothing, and without hire, behold the
sun. I should have a king's life, if I had no other thing to do,
than, for evermore, to behold and eye my fair Lord Jesus : nay,
suppose I were holden out, at Heaven's fair entry, I should be
happy for evermore, to look through a hole in the door, and see
my dearest and fairest Lord's face. O great King, why standest
thou aloof? Why remainest thou beyond the mountains? O
Well-beloved, why dost thou pain a poor soul with delays ? A
1 Near. 2 Boggleth.
Rutherford's letters. 333
long time out of thy glorious presence is two deaths and two hells
to me. — We must meet, I must see him, I dow not ^ want him.
Hunger and longing for Christ, hath brouglit on such a necessity
of enjoying Christ, that, cost me what it will, I cannot but assure
Christ that I will not, I dow not ^ want him : for I cannot master
nor connnand Christ's love. Nay, Hell (as I now think,) and all
the pains in it, laid on me alone, would not put me from loving :
yea, suppose that my Lord Jesus would not love me, it is above
my strength or power to keep back or imprison the weak love
which I have, but it must be out to Christ : I would set Heaven's
joy aside, and live upon Christ's love its lone.^ Let me have no
joy but the warmness and fire of Christ's love ; I seek no other,
God knoweth. If this love be taken from me, the bottom is fallen
out of all my happiness and joy ; and, therefore, I beheve that
Christ will never do me that ^ much harm, as to bereave a poor
prisoner of his love : it were cruelty to take it from me ; and He
who is kindness itself, cannot be cruel.
Dear brother, weary not of my sweet Master's chains ; we are
so much the sibber * to Christ that we suffer. Lodge not a hard
thought of my royal King : rejoice in his cross. Your deliverance
sleepeth not. He that will come is not slack of his promise. Wait
on for God's timous^ salvation; ask not when, or how long? I
hope he shall lose nothing of you in the furnace, but dross. Com-
mit your cause in meekness, (forgiving your oppressors,) to God,
and your sentence shall come back from him laughing. Our
Bridegroom's day is coming fast on ; and this world, that seemeth
to go with a long and a short foot, shall be put into two ranks.
Wait till your ten days ^ be ended, and hope for the crown ; Christ
will not give you a blind in the end.
Commend me to your wife and father, and to Baillie M. A.; and
send this letter to him.
The prayers of Christ's prisoner be upon you, and the Lord's
presence accompany you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 6, 1637.
LETTER CCXHL
TO ROBERT LENNOX, OP DISDOVE.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I be-
seech you in the Lord Jesus, make fast and sure work of life
eternal. Sow not rotten seed : every man's work will speak for
itself, what his seed hath been. Oh, how many see I, who sow
to the flesh ! Alas, what a crop will that be, when the Lord shall put
in his hook '' to reap this world, that is ripe and white for judgment!
1 Am not able.
2 By itself alone.
3 So.
4 More nearly related.
5 Seasonable.
6 Rev. ii. 10.
7 Sickle.
334 Rutherford's letters.
I recommend to you holiness and sanctification, and that you
keep yourself clean from this present evil world. We dehght to
tell our own dreams, and to flatter our own flesh with the hope
which we have: it were wisdom for us to be free, plain, honest,
and sharp with our own souls, and to charge them to brew better,
that tliey may drink well, and fare well, when time is melted
away like snow in a hot summer. Oh, how hard a thing- is it, to
get the soul to give up with all things on this side of death and
doomsday ! We say that we are removing and going from this
world ; but our heart stirreth not one foot off its seat. Alas ! I
see few heavenly-minded souls, that have nothing upon the earth,
but their body of clay going up and down this earth, because
their soul and the powers of it are up in Heaven, and there, their
hearts live, desire, enjoy, rejoice. Oh ! men's souls have no wings,
and, therefore, night and day they keep their nest, and are not ac-
quainted with Cluist. Sir, take you to your one thing, to Christ,
that ye may be acquainted with the taste of his sweetness and
excellency, and charge your love not to dote upon this world ; for
it will not do your business in that day, when nothing will come
in good stead to you, but God's favor. Build upon Christ some
good, choice, and fast work ; for when your soul for many, years
hath taken the play, and hath posted, and wandered through the
creatures, ye will come home again with the wind ; — they are not
good, at least not the soul's good. It is the infinite Godhead that
must allay the sjiarpness of your hunger after happiness ; otherwise
there shall still be a want of satisfaction to your desires: and if
he should cast in ten worlds into your desires, all shall fall through,
and your soul will slill cry, "Red* hunger, black' hunger:" — but
I am sure there is sufficient for you in Christ, if ye had seven
souls and seven desires in you.
Oh, if- I could make my Lord Jesus inarket-sweet,^ lovel}^, de-
sirable, and fair to all the world, both to Jew and Gentile ! Oh,
let my part of Heaven go for it, so being he would take my tongue
to be his instrument, to set out Christ in his whole braveries of
love, virtue, grace, sweetness, and matchless glory, to the eyes and
hearts of Jews and Gentiles ! — but who is sufficient for these
things ! Oh, for the help of angels' tongues, to make Christ eye-
sweet' and amiable to many thousands! Oh, how little doth
this world see of him, and how far are they from the love of him,
seeing there is so much loveliness, beauty, and sweetness in
Christ, that no created eye did ever yet see ! 1 would that all
men knew his glory, and that I could put many in at the Bride-
groom's chamber-door, to see his beauty, and to be partakers of
his high, and deep, and broad, and boundless love. Oh, lei. all the
world come nigh and see Christ, and they shall then see more
than I can say of him ! Oh, if '^ I had a pledge or pawn to lay
down for a seaful of his love ! that I could come by so much of
1 Red an 1 black are used as intensitive words in the Scottish diahxt.
2 Oh that. 3 Desirable, so as to be sought alter in the public market.
•• Pleasant to the eye.
Rutherford's letters. 335
Christ, as would satisfy greening' and longing for him, or rather
increase it, till I were in full possession ! I know that we shall
meet ; and therein I rejoice.
Sir, stand fast in the truth of Christ, that ye have received.
Yield to no winds, but ride out, and let Christ be your anchor,
and tire only He, whom ye shall look to see in peace. Pray for
me, his prisoner, that the Lord would send me among you to feed
his people.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCXIV.
TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON.
■ Reverend, and dearly beloved in our Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. — Our acquaintance is neilher in bod-
ily presence, nor on paper ; but as sons of the same Father, and
sufferers for the same truth.
Let no man doubt that the state of our question, we are now
forced to stand to by suffering exile and imprisonment is — If Jesus
should reign over his kiik, or not ? Oh, if ^ my sinful arm could
hold the crown on his head, howbeit it should be stricken off from
the shoulder blade ! For your ensuing and feared trial, my very
dearest in our Lord Jesus, alas ! wliat am I to speak to comfort a
soldier of Christ, w^ho hath done a hundred times more for that
worthy and honorable cause than I can do? But I know, those
of whom the world was not worthy, wandered up and down in
deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and caves of the earth ;
and that while there is one member of mystical Christ out of
Heaven, that member must suffer strokes, till our Lord Jesus
draw in that member within the gates of the New Jerusalem,
which he will not fail to do at last ; for not one toe or tinger of
that body, but it shall be taken in within the city. What can be
our part, in this pitched battle betwixt the Lamb and the Dragon,
but to receive the darts in patience, that rebound off us upon our
sweet Master; or rather liiz;ht hrst upon him, and then rebound
otT him upon his servants? 1 tbink it a sweet north-wind, that
bloweth first upon the fair fare of the Chief among ten thouscind,
and then lighteth upon our sinful and black faces. When once
the witid bloweth off him upon me, I think it hath a sweet smell
of Christ; and so nuist be some^ more than a single cross. I
know that ye have a guard about you, and your attendance and
train for your safety is far beyond your pursuers' force or fraud:
it is good, under feud, to be near otu" w-ar-house, and stronghold.
We can do but little to resist them, who persecute us and oppose
1 Greedily desiring. 2 Oh, that. 3 Somewhat,
336 Rutherford's letters.
him, but keep our blood and our wounds to the next court-day,
when our complaints shall be read. If this day be not Christ's, I
am sure the morrow shall be his.
As for anything I do in my bonds, when now and then a word
falleth from me, alas ! it is very little. I am exceedingly grieved
that any should conceive anything to be in such a broken and
empty reed : let no man impute it to me, that the free and un-
bought wind, (for I gave nothing for it,) bloweth upon an empty
reed. I am his over-burdened debtor. I cry, " Down with men,
down, down with all the excellency of the world ; and up, up
with Christ !" Long, long may that fair One, that holy One, be
on high ! My curse be upon them that love him not. Oh, how
glad would I be, if his glory would grow out, and spring up out
of my bonds and sufferings ! Certainly since I became his pris-
oner, he hath won the yolk and heart of my soul. Christ is even
become a new Christ to me, and his love greener than it was.
And now I strive no more with him. His love shall carry it away.
I lay down myself under his love. I desire to sing, and to cry,
and to proclahn myself, even under the water, in his common, '
and eternally indebted to his kindness. I will not offer to quit
commons with ^ him, (as we used to say,) for that will not be.
All, all for evermore be Christ's. What further trials are before
rae, I know not ; but 1 know that Christ will have a saved soul
of me, over on the other side of the water, on the yonder-side of
crosses, and be3^ond men's wrongs.
I had but one eye, and that they have put out. My one joy,
next to the flower of my joys, Christ, was to preach my sweetest,
sweetest Master, and the glory of his Kingdom ; and it seemed
no cruelty to them to put out the poor man's one eye. And now
I am seeking about to see if suffering will speak my fair One's
praises ; and I am trying if a dumb man's tongue can raise one
note, or one of Zion's springs to advance my Well-beloved's glory.
Oh, if he would make some glory to himself out of a dumb pris-
oner ! I go with child of his word : I cannot be delivered : none
here will have my Master : alas ! what aileth them at him 7
I bless you for your prayers ; add to them praises : as I am able,
I pay you home. I commend your diving in Christ's Testament ;
I would J. could set out the dead Man's good-will to his friends, in
his sweet testament. Speak a prisoner's hearty commendations
to Christ ; fear not, your ten days ^ will over. Those that are
gathered against Mount Zion, their eyes shall melt away in their
eye-holes, and their tongues consume away in their mouths, and
Christ's withered garden shall grow green again in Scotland. My
Lord Jesus hath a word hid in Heaven for Scotland, not yet
brought out.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 7, 1637.
1 Under obligation. 2 To cease to be obliged to.
3 Rev. ii. 10.
Rutherford's letters. 337
LETTER CCXV.
TO MISTRESS STUART.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I am sorry
that ye take it so hardly, that I have not written to you.
I am judged to be that which I am not. I fear that if I were
put into the fire, I should melt away, and fall down in sherds of
painted nature ; for truly I have little stuff at home that is worth
the eye of God's servants. If there be anything of Christ's in me,
(as I dare not deny some of his work,) it is but a spunk ^ of bor-
rowed fire, that can scarce warm myself, and hath little heat for
standers-by. I would fain have that which ye and others believe
I have ; but ye are only witnesses to my outer side, and to some
words on paper. Oh, that he would give me more than paper-
grace or tongue-grace ! Were it not that want paineth me, I
should have skailed ^ house, and gone a-begging long since : but
Christ hath left me with some hunger, that is more hot than wise,
and is ready often to say, " If Christ longed for me, as I do for
him, we should not be long in meeting ; and if he loved my com-
pany as well as I do his, even while I am writing this letter to
you, we should flee ^ into each other's arms." But I know there
is more will than wit in this languor and pining love for Christ ;
and no marvel, for love to Christ would have liot harvest, long
ere midsummer. But if I have any love to him, Christ hath both
love to me. and wit to guide his love ; and I see that the best thing
I have hath as much dross beside it as might curse me and it both ;
and, if it were for no more, we have need of a Saviour to pardon
the very faults, and diseases, and weakness of the new man, and
to take away (to say so) our godly sins, or the sins of our sancti-
fication, and the dross and scum of spiritual love. Wo, wo is me !
Oh, what need is there, then, of Christ's calling to scour, and
cleanse, and wash away an ugly old body of sin — the very image
of Satan ! I know nothing surer, than that there is an office for
Christ amongst us. I wish for no other heaven on this side of
the last sea that I must cross, than this service of Christ, to make
my blackness beauty, my deadness life, my guiltiness sanctifica-
tion. I long much for that day, when t shall be holy. Oh, what
spots are yet unwashen!^ Oh, that I could change the skin of
the leopard and the moor, and niffer' it with some of Christ's fair-
ness ! Were my blackness and Christ's beautj^ carded through-
other,^ (as we use to speak,) his beauty and holiness would eat up
my filthiness. But, oh, I have not casten old Adam's hue and
color yet ! I trow that the best of us hath a smell yet of the old
loathsome body of sin and guiltiness. Happy are they for ever-
more who can employ Christ, and set his blood and death on
1 Spark. 2 Dispersed. 3 Fly.
* Unwashed. 5 Exchange. 6 Promiscuously.
22
338 Rutherford's letters.
work, to make clean work to God, of foul souls. I know that it
is our sin that would have sanctification on the sunny-side of the
hill, and holiness with nothing but summer, and crosses no at all.
Sin hath made us as tender as if we were made of paper or glass.
I am often thinking, what I would think of Christ and burning
quick together, of Christ and torturing, and hot melted lead poured
in at mouth and navel ; yet I have some weak experience, (but
very weak indeed,) that suppose Christ and Hell's torments were
married together, and if there were no finding of Christ at all, ex-
cept I went to Hell's furnace, that there, and in no other place, I
could meet with him ; I trow that if I were as I have been since
I was his prisoner, I would beg lodging for God's sake in Hell's
hottest furnace, that I might rub souls with Christ. But God be
thanked, I shall find him in a better lodging. We get Christ
better-cheap^ than so : when he is rouped'^ to us, we get him but
with a shower of summer troubles in this life, as sweet and as soft
as to believers as a May-dew.
I would have you and m3rself helping Christ mystical to weep
for his wife ; and, oh, that we could mourn for Christ buried in
Scotland, and for his two slain witnesses, killed because they
prophesied ! If we could so importune and soHcit God, our buried
Lord and his two buried witnesses should rise again. Earth, and
clay, and stone, will not bear down Christ and the Gospel in Scot-
land. I know not if I shall see the second Temple, and the glory
of it ; but the Lord hath deceived me if it be not to be reared up
again. I would wish to give Christ his welcome home again: —
my blessing, my joy, my glory, and love be on the Home-comer.
I find no better use of suffering than that Christ's winnowing
putteth chaff and corn in the saints to sundry places, and discov-
ereth our dross from his gold, so as corruption and grace are so
seen, that Christ saith in the furnace, "That is mine, and this is
thine : the scum and the grounds, thy stomach against the perse-
cutors, thy impatience, thy unbelief, thy quarrelling, these are
thine ; and faith, on-waiting, love, joy, courage, are mine." Oh,
let me die one of Christ's on- waiters, and one of his attendants !
I know that your heart and Christ are married together ; it
were not good to make a divorce. Rue not of that meeting and
marriage with such a husband. Pray for me his prisoner. Grace,
grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCXVL
TO MR. HUGH MACKAIL.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. — I received your letter. I bless you for it.
» More than gratuitously. 2 Auctioned.
Rutherford's letters. 339
My dry root would take more dew and summer-rain than it
getteth, were it not that Christ will have dryness and deadness
in us to work upon ; if there were no timber to work upon, art
would die, and never be seen. I see that grace hath a field to
play upon, and to course up and down in our wants ; so that I
am often thanking God, not for guiltiness, but for guiltiness for
Christ to whet and sharpen his grace upon : I am half content to
have boils for the plasters of my Lord Jesus. Sickness hath this
advantage, that it draweth our sweet Physician's hand, and his
holy and soft fingers, to touch our withered and leper skins. It is
a blessed fever that fetcheth Christ to the bed-side. I think my
Lord's " How doest thou with it, sick Body ?" is worth ail my
pained nights. Surely, I have no more for Christ, than empti-
ness and want : take or leave, he will get me no otherwise. I
must sell myself, and my wants to him ; but I have no price to
give for him. If he would put a fair and real seal upon his love
to me, and bestow upon me a larger share of Christ's love, (which
I would fainest be in hands with of anything — I except not
Heaven itself,) I should go on sighing and singing under his cross ;
but the worst is, many take me for somebody, because the wind
bloweth upon a withered prisoner ; but the truth is, that I am
both lean and thin in that, wherein many believe I abound. I
would, (if bartering Avere in my power,) niffer ^ joy with Christ's
love and faith, and, instead of the hot sunshine, be content to
walk under a cloudy shadow with more grief and sadness, to have
more faith and a fair occasion of setting forth and commending
Christ, and to make that lovely One, that fair One, that sweetest
and dearest Lord Jesus, market-sweet^ for many ears and hearts
in Scotland ; and, if it were in my power, to roup ^ Christ to the
Three Kingdoms, and withal persuade buyers to come, and to
lake such sweet wares as Christ, I would think to have many
sweet bargains betwixt Christ and the sons of men. I would that
I could be humble, and go with a low sail : I would that I had
desires with wings, and running upon wheels ; swift, and active,
and speedy in longing for Christ's honor. But I know that my
Lord is as wise here as I dow^ be thirsty ; and infinitely more
zealous of his honor, than I can be hungry for the manifestation
of it to men and angels. But, oh, that my Lord would take my
desires off my hand, and a thousand-fold more unto them, and sow
spiritual inclinations upon them, for the coming of Christ's King-
dom to the sons of men ! that they might be higher, and deeper,
and longer, and broader — for my longest measures are too short
for Christ, iny depth is ebb^ and the breadth of my affections to
Christ narrowed and pinched. Oh, for an ingine ^ and a wit, to
prescribe ways to men, how Christ might be all, in all the world !
— Wit is here behind affection, and affection behind obligation.
Oh, how little dow ^ I give to Christ, and how much hath he
• Exchange. 2 Sought after, as it were, in the common market.
3 Auction. * Am able to. s Shallow.
* Genius, "> Am able.
340 Rutherford's letters.
given me ! Oh, that I could sing grace's praises, and love's
praises ! seeing that I was liice a fool soliciting the Law, and mak-
ing moyen ' to the Law's court for mercy, and found challenges ^
that way ; but now I deny that judge's power ; for I am grace's
man : I hold not worth a drink of water, the Law, or any lord, but
Jesus — and till I bethought me of this, 1 was slain with doubtings,
and fears, and terrors. I praise the new court, and the new Land-
lord, and the new salvation, purchased in the name of Jesus, and
at his instance. Let the Old Man, if he please, go make his
moan ^ to the Law, and seek acquaintance thereaway ^ because
he is condemned in that court ; I hope that the New Man, and I,
and Christ together will not be heard : and this is the more soft
and the more easy way for me and for my cross together. Seeing
that Christ singeth my welcome-home, and taketh me in, and
maketh short accounts and short work of reckoning betwixt me
and my Judge, I must be Christ's man, and his tenant, and sub-
ject to his court. I am sure that suffering for Christ could not be
borne otherwise : but I give my hand and my faith to all who
would suffer for Christ, that they shall be well handled, and fare
well in the same way, that I have found the cross easy and light.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 8, 1637.
LETTER CCXVIL
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF GARLOCK.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — If
Christ were as I am, that time could work upon him to alter him,
or that the morrow could bring a new day to him, or bring a new
mind to him, as it is to me a new day, I could not keep a house
or a covenant with him : but I find Christ to be Christ, and that
he is far, far, even infinite heaven's height above men : and that is
all our happiness. Sinners can do nothing, but make wounds,
that Christ may heal them ; and make debts, that he may pay
them ; and make falls, that he may raise them ; and make deaths,
that he may quicken them ; and spin out and dig hells for them-
selves, that he may ransom them. Now I will bless the Lord, that
ever there was such a thing as the free grace of God, and a free
ransom given for sold souls : only, alas ! guiltiness maketh me
ashamed to apply Christ, and to think it pride in me, to put out
my unclean and withered hand to such a Saviour. But it is
neither shame nor pride, for a drowning man to swim to a rock,
nor for a ship-broken soul to run himself ashore upon Christ.
Suppose once I be guilty, need-force ^ I cannot, I dow not " go by ^
1 Interest. 2 Accusations. 3 Bemoan himself.
* In those parts. 5 Of necessity. 6 Am not able. ' Past.
Rutherford's letters. 341
Christ. We take in good part that pride, that beggars beg from
the richer ; and who so poor as we ? and who so rich as He who
selleth fine Gold ? (Rev. iii. 18.) T see, then, it is our best, (let
guiltiness plead w4iat it listcth,) that we have no mean under the
covering of Heaven, but to creep in lowly and submissively with
our wants to Christ. I have also cause to give his cross a good
name and report. Oh, how worthy is Christ of my feckless ^ and
hght suffering ! and how hath he deserved it at my hands, that,
for his honor and glory, I should lay my back under seven hells'
pains in one, if he call me to that ! But alas ! my soul is like a
ship run on ground through ebbness'^of water. I am sanded,^
and my love is sanded,^ and I find not how to bring it on float
again. It is so cold and dead, that I see not how to bring it to a
flame. F}'', fy upon the meeting that my love hath given Christ.
Wo, wo is me, I have a lover Christ, and yet I want love for him :
I have a lovely and desirable Lord, who is loveworthy, and who
beggeth my love and heart, and I have nothing to give him. Dear
brother, come further in on Christ, and see a new treasure in him.
Come in, and look down, and see angels' wonder, and Heaven and
earth's wonder of love, sweetness, majesty, and excellency in him.
I forget you not. Pray for me, that our Lord would be pleased
to send me among you again, fraughted and full of Christ.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCXVHL
TO JOHN BELL, ELDER
My very loving Friend, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. — I have very often and long expected your letter : but if ye
be well in soul and body, I am the less solicitous.
I beseech you, in the Lord Jesus, to mind your country above :
and now, when old age — the twilight going before the darkness
of the grave, and the falling low of your sun before your night —
is come upon you, advise with Christ, ere ye put your foot into
the ship, and turn your back on this life. Many are beguiled with
this, that they are free of scandalous and crying abominations ; but
the tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, is for the fire ; the man
that is not born again, cannot enter into the Kingdom of God : —
common honesty will not take men to Heaven. Alas, that men
should think that ever they met with Christ, who had never a sick
night, through the terrors of God in their souls, or a sore heart for
sin ! I know that the Lord hath given you light, and the knowl-
edge of his will, but that is not all, neither will that do your turn.
I wish you an awakened soul, and that ye beguile not yourself,
1 Worthless. 2 Shallowness. 3 Stranded.
342 Rutherford's letters.
in the matter of your salvation. My dear brother, search yourself
with the candle of God, and try if the life of God and Christ be in
you. Salvation is not casten to every man's door. Many are
carried over sea and land, to a far country in a ship, whileas they
sleep much of all the way ; but men are not landed at Heaven
sleeping. The righteous are scarcely saved ; and many run as
fast as either you or I, who miss the prize and the crown. God
send me salvation, and save me from a disappointment, and I seek
no more. Men think it but a stride, or step over to Heaven ; but
when so few are saved, even of a number like the sand of the sea
— but a handful and a remnant, (as God's word saith) — what
cause have we to shake ourselves out of ourselves, and to ask our
poor soul, "Whither goest thou? Where shalt thou lodge at
night? Where are thy charters and writs of tliy heavenly in-
heritance ?" 1 have known a man turn a key in a door, and lock
it by.' Many men leap over, (as they think,) and leap in. Oh,
see ! see that ye give not your salvation a wrong cast, and think
all is well, and leave your soul loose and uncertain. Look to your
building, and to your ground-stone,^ and what signs of Christ are
in you, and set this world behind your back. It is time, now in
the evening, to cease from your ordinary work, and high time to
know of your lodging at night : it is your salvation that is in de-
pendence, and that is a great and weighty business, though many
make light of the matter.
Now, the Lord enable you by his grace to work it out.
Your lawful, and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCXIX.
TO MR. JOHN ROW.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — I received yours. — I bless
his high and great name, that I like my sweet Master still the
longer the better : a sight of his cross is more awsome ^ than the
weight of it. I think the worst things of Christ, even his re-
proaches and his cross, (when I look on these not with bleared
eyes,) far rather to be chosen than the laughter and worm-eaten
joys of my adversaries. Oh, that they were as I am, except my
bonds ! My Witness is above, that my ministry, next to Christ,
is dearest to me of anything ; but I lay it down at Christ's feet,
for his glory and his honor as supreme Lawgiver, which is dearer
to me.
My dear brother, if ye will receive the testimony of a poor pris-
oner of Christ, who dare not now dissemble for the world, I believe
certainly, and expect thanks from the Prince of the kings of the
1 That is, turn the bolt not into, but past the staple or socket that should hold it.
2 Foundation. 3 Awful.
Rutherford's letters. 343
earth, for my poor hazards, (such as ihey are,) for his honorable
cause, wlioin I can never enough extol, for his running-over love
to my sad soul, since I came hitlier. Oh, that I could get him set
on high and praised ! I seek no more, as the top and root of my
desires, than that Christ may make glory to himself, and edifica-
tion to the weaker, out of my sufferings.
I desire ye would help me both to pray and praise. Grace be
with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 8th, 1637.
LETTER CCXX.
TO MY LORD CRAIGHALL.
My Lord, — I persuade myself that notwithstanding the great-
ness of this temptation, ye will not let Christ want a witness of
you, to avow him before this evil generation. And if ye advise
with God's truth, (the perfect testament of Christ, that forbiddeth
all men's additions to his worship.) and with the truly learned,
and w^ith all the sanctified in this land, and Avith that warner
within you, (which will not fail to speak against you, in God's
name, if ye be not now fast and fixed for Christ,) I hope, then,
that your Lordship will acquit yourself as a man of courage for
Christ, and refuse to bow your knee superstitiously and idola-
trously to wood or stone, or any creature wdiatsoever. I persuade
myself that when ye shall take good night at this world, ye shall
think it God's truth I now write.
Some fear that your Lordship hath obliged yourself to His Maj-
esty by promise to satisfy his desire. If it be so, my dear, and
worthy Lord, hear me for your soul's good. Think upon swim-
ming ashore after this shipwreck, and be pleased to write your
humble apology to his Majesty ; it may be that God will give you
favor in his eyes. However it be, far be it from you to think a
promise made out of weakness, and extorted by the terror of a
king, should bind you to wrong your Lord, Jesus. But for my-
self, I give no faith to that report, but I believe that ye will prove
fast to Christ. To this grace I recommend you.
Your Lordship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 8, 1G37.
LETTER CCXXL
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Worthy, and dearest in the Lord, — I rejoice that you
are a partaker of the sufferings of Christ. Faint not, keep breath,
344 Rutherford's letters.
believe ; howbeit men, and busband, and friends, prove weak, yet
youi- strenj^tb failetb not. It is not pride for a drowning man to
grip to ' tbe rock. It is your glory to lay bold on your Rock. O
woman greatly beloved ! I testify and avoucb it in my Lord, tbat
tbe prayers ye sent to Heaven, tbese many years by-gone,^ are
come up before the Lord and sball not be forgotten. What it is
tbat will come, I cannot tell ; but I know tbat, as the Lord livetb,
tbese cries sball bring down mercy. I charge you, and those peo-
ple witb you, to go on without fainting or fear, and still believe,
and take no nay-say.^ If ye leave off, tbe field is lost ; if ye con-
tinue, our enemies sball be a tottering wall, and a bowing fence.
I write it, (and keep tbis letter,) utter, utter desolation shall be to
your adversaries, and to tbe baters of tbe Virgin-daugbter of Scot-
land. Tbe bride will yet sing, as in tbe days of ber youtb. Sal-
vation sball be ber walls and bulwarks. Tbe dry olive-tree sball
bud again, and dry dead bones shall live; for the Lord will pro-
phesy "to the dry bones, and the Spirit shall come upon them, and
we shall live.
I rejoice to hear of John Carsen ! I sball not forget him. Re-
member me to Grizzel, and Jean Brown. Your busband hath
made me heavy ; but be courageous in tbe Lord. I send blessings
to Samuel and William. Show them tbat I will them to seek
God in their youth.
Grace is yours.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 8, 1637.
LETTER CCXXII.
TO MY LADY CULROSS.
Madam,— Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I am much re-
freshed witb your letter, now at length come to me. I find my
Lord Jesus cometh not in tbat precise way tbat I lay wait for him ;
he hath a gate * of bis own : oh, how high are his ways above my
ways ! I see but little of him. It is best not to offer to learn him
a lesson, but to give him absolutely bis own will, in coming, go-
ing, ebbing, and in the manner of his gracious working. I want
nothing but a back-burden of Christ's love. I would go through
Hell, and tbe thick ^ of the damned devils, to have a hearty feast
of Christ's love ; for he hath fettered me with his love, and run
away, and left me a chained man.
Wo is me, tbat I was so loose, rash, vain, and graceless, in my
unbelieving thoughts of Christ's love. But what can a soul, under
a non-entry, (when my rights ^ were wadset ^ and lost,) do else,
1 To clincr to. 2 By-passed. 3 Nay-word, denial. < Manner.
5 Throng. 6 Charters. ^ AHenated.
Rutherford's letters. 345
but make a false libel against Christ's love ! I know that yourself,
madam, and many moe, will be witnesses against me, if I repent
not of my unbelief; for I have been seeking the Pope's wares,
some hire for grace within myself I have not learned, as I should
do, to put my stock and all my treasure into Christ's hand ; but I
would have a stock of mine own, and ere I was aware, I was tak-
mg hire to be the Law's advocate, to seek justification by works.
I forgot, that grace is the only garland that is worn in Heaven,
upon the heads of the glorified. And now I half rejoice, that I
have sickness for Christ to work upon. Since I must have wounds,
well is my soul ! I have a day's work for my Physician, Christ.
I hope to give Christ his own calling : it setteth him full well to
cure diseases.
My ebbings are very low, and the tide is far out when my Be-
loved goeth away; and then I cry, "Oh, cruelty! to put out the
poor man's one eye ;" and that was my joy next to Christ, to
preach my Well-beloved : then I make a noise about Christ's house,
looking unco-like ' in at his window, and casting my love and my
desires over the wall, till God send better. I am often content
that my bill lie in Heaven, till the day of my departure, providing
I had assurance, that mercy shall be written on the back of it.
I would not care for on-waiting ; but when I draw in a tired arm,
and an empty hand withal, it is nuich to me to keep my thoughts
in order — but I will not get a gate '^ for Christ's love, when I have
done all I can. I would fain yield to his stream, and row with
Christ, and not against him. But while I live, I see that Christ's
Kingdom in me will not be peaceable — so many thoughts in me
rise up against his honor and kingly power. Surely, I have not
expressed all his sweet kindness to me : I spare to do it, lest I be
deemed to seek myself; but his breath hath smelled of the pow-
ders of the merchant, and of the king's spikenard. I think that I
conceive new thoughts of Heaven, because the chart and the map
of Heaven, which he Ictteth me now see, is so fair, and so sweet.
I am sure that we are niggards, and sparing bodies in seeking.
I verily judge that we know not how much may be had in this
life ; there is yet something beyond all that we see, that seeking
would light upon. Oh, that my love sickness would put me to a
business, when all the world are sound-sleeping, to cry and knock !
But the truth is, that since I came hither, I have been wondering,
that, after my importunity to have my fill of Christ's love, I have
not gotten a real sign, but have come from him crying, " Hunger,
hunger." I think that Christ Ictteth me see meat in my extremity
of hunger, and giveth me none of it: when I am near the apple.
he draweth back his hand, and goeth away to cause me follow ;
and again, when I am within an arm-length of the apple, he
maketh a new break to the gate ^ and I have him to seek of new.
He seemeth not to pity my dwining ^ and my swooning for his
• Having an appearance of strangeness. 2 Way.
3 That is, maketh a rush out to the door, apparently for the purpose of escaping.
* Pining.
346 Rutherford's letters.
love. I dare soraelimcs put my hunger over to him, to be judged,
if I would not buy him with a thousand years in the hottest fur-
nace in Hell, so being I might enjoy him. But my hunger is fed
with want and absence. I hunger, and I have not ; but my com-
fort is to lye and wait on, and to put my poor soul and my suffer-
ings into Christ's hand. Let him make anything out of me, so
being he be glorified in my salvation ; for I know that I am made ,
for him. Oh, that my Lord may win his own gracious end in me. -^
I will not be at ease, while I but stand so far aback. Oh, if I
were near him, and with him, that this poor soul might be satis-
fied with hiuiself !
Your son-in-law, W. G., is now truly honored for his Lord and
Master's cause : when the Lord is fanning Zion, it is a good
token that he is a true branch of the vine, that the Lord begin-
neth first to dress him. He is strong in his Lord, as he hath
written to me, and his wife is his encourager, which should make
you rejoice.
As for your son, who is your grief, your Lord waited on you and
me, till we were ripe, and brought us in. It is your part to pray
and wait upon him : when he is ripe he will be spoken for. Who
can command our Lord's wind to IjIow 1 I know that it shall be
your good in the latter end. That is one of your waters to Heaven,
ye could not go about it — there are the fewer behind. I remem-
ber you and him, and yours, as I am able : but alas ! I am be-
lieved to be something, and I am nothing but an empty reed :
wants are my best riches, because I have these supplied by Christ.
Remember my dearest love to your brother. I know that he
pleadeth with his Harlot-mother for her apostasy. I know also
that ye are kind to my worthy Lady Kenmure, a woman beloved
of the Lord, who hath been very mindful of my bonds. The Lord
give her and her child to find mercy iu the day of Christ ! Great
men are dry and cold in doing for me ; the tinkling of chains for
Christ afiVighteth them : but, let my Lord break all my idols, I
will yet bless him. I am obliged to my Lord Lorn. I wish him
mercy.
Remember my bonds with praises ; and pray for me, that my
Lord may leaven the North, by my bonds and sufferings.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 9, 1G37.
LETTER CCXXm.
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF KNOCKGRAY
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — There
is no question but our Mother-church hath a Father, and that she
shall not die without an heir, that her enemies shall not make
Rutherford's letters. 347
Mount Zion their heritage. We see that whither-soever Zion's
enemies go, suppose they dig many miles under the ground, yet
our Lord findeth them out: and he hath vengeance laid up in
store for them, and the poor and needy shall not always be for-
gotten. Our hope was drooping and withering, and man was
saying, "What can God make out of the old dry bones of this
buried Kirk ?" The prelates and their followers were a grave
above us. It is like that our Lord is to open our graves, and pur-
poseth to cause his two slain witnesses to rise on the third day.
Oh, how long wait I, to hear our weeping Lord, Jesus, sing again,
and triumph and rejoice, and divide the spoil !
I find it hard work to believe, when the course of providence
goeth cross-wise to our faith, and when misted ' souls in a dark
night cannot know east by west, and our sea-compass seemeth to
fail us. Every man is a behever in day-light : a fair day seemeth
to be made all of faith and hope. What a trial of gold is it, to
smoke it a little above the fire ? but to keep gold perfectly yellow-
colored amidst the flames, and to be turned from vessel to vessel,
and yet to cause our furnace to sound, and speak, and cry the
praises of the Lord, is another matter. I know that my Lord made
me not for fire, howbeit he hath fitted me in some measure for the
fire. I bless his high name, that I wax not paler, neither have I
lost the color of gold, and that his fire hath made me somewhat
thin,^ and that my Lord may pour me into any vessel he pleaseth.
For a small wager 1 may justly quit my part of this world's laugh-
ter, and give up with time, and cast out ^ with the pleasures of
this world.
I know a man, who wondered to see any in this life laugh or
sport : surely our Lord seeketh this of us, as to any rejoicing in
present perishing things. I see above all things, that we may sit
down, and fold legs and arms, and stretch ourselves upon Christ,
and laugh at the feathers that children are chasing here. For I
think the men of this world, like children in a dangerous storm in
the sea, that play and make sport with the white foam of the waves
thereof, coming in to sink and drown them ; so are men making
fools' sports with the white pleasures of a stormy world, that will
sink them. But, alas ! what have we to do with their sports
which they make? If Solomon said of laughter that it was mad-
ness, what may we say of this world's laughing and sjjorting them-
selves with gold and silver, and honors and court, and broad large
conquests,* but that they are poor souls, in the height and rage
of a fever gone mad ? then a straw, a fig for all created sports
and rejoicing out of Christ. Nay, I think that this world, at its
prime and perfection, when it is come to the top of its excellency,
and to the bloom, might be bought with an half-penny ; and that
it would scarce weigh the worth of a drink of water. There is
nothing better than to esteem it our crucified idol, that is dead and
slain, as Paul did, (Gal. vi. 14.) Then let pleasures be crucified,
and riches be crucified, and court and honor be crucified ; and
* Bewildered. 2 Fluid. 3 Fall out. * Acqiusitions.
348 Rutherford's letters
since the apostle saith that the world is crucified to him, we may
put this world to the hanged man's doom, and to the gallows : and
who will give much for a hanged man ? and as little should we
give for a hanged and crucified world. Yet, what a sweet smell
hath this dead carrion to many fools in the world ! and how many
wooers and suitors findeth this hanged carrion ! Fools are pulling
it off the gallows, and contending for it. Oh, when will we learn
to be mortified men, and to have our fill of those things that have
but their short summer quarter of this life ! If we saw our Father's
house, and that great and fair city, the New Jerusalem, which is
up above sun and moon, we would cry to be over the water, and
to be carried in Christ's arms out of this borrowed prison.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCXXIV.
TO FULWOOD, YOUNGER.
Much honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. —
Upon the report of this worthy bearer concerning you, I thought
good to speak a word to you — it is enough for acquaintance, that
we are one in Christ.
My earnest desire to you is, that ye would, in the fear of God,
compare your inch and hand-breadth of time with vast eternity,
and your thoughts of this now fair, blooming and green world, with
the thoughts which ye will have of it when corruption and worms
will make their houses in your eye-holes, and eat your flesh, and
make that body dry bones. If ye so do, I know then that your
light of this world's vanity shall be more clear than now it is ; and
I am persuaded ye will then think, that men's labors for this clay-
idol are to be laughed at. Therefore, come near, and take a view
of that transparent beauty that is in Christ, which would busy
the love of ten thousand millions of worlds and angels, and hold
them all at work. Surely I am grieved, that men will not spend
their whole love upon that royal and princely Well-beloved, that
high and lofty One — for it is cursed love that runneth anoth-
er way than upon him. And for myself, if I had ten loves and
ten souls, oh, how glad would I be, if he would break in upon me
and take possession of them all ! Wo, wo is me, that he and I
are so far asunder ! I hope we shall be in one country and one
house together. Truly pain of love-sickness for Jesus maketh me
to think it long, long, long to the dawning of that day. Oh, that
he would cut short years and months and hours, and over-leap
time, that we might meet !
And for this truth, sir, that ye profess, I avow — before the
world of men and angels, that it is the way, and the only way, to
our country, the rest are by-ways ; and, that what I suffer for is
Rutherford's letters. 349
the apple of Christ's eye, even his honor as Lawgiver and King
of his Church. I think death too httle ere I forsook it. Do not,
sir, I beseech you in the Lord, make Christ's court thinner by
drawing back from him ; it is too thin ah'eady ; for I dare pledge
my heaven upon it, that he will win this plea, and that the fools
who plea against him shall lose the wager, which is their part of
salvation, except they take better heed to their ways. Sir, free
grace that we give no hire for, is a jewel which our Lord giveth
to few. Stand fast in the hope that you are called unto. Our
master will rend the clouds, and will be upon us quickly, and
clear our cause, and bring us all out in our blacks and whites.
Clean, clean garments, in the Bridegroom's eye, are of great worth.
Step over this hand-breadth of world's glory, into our Lord's new
world of grace, and ye will laugh at the feathers that children are
chasing in the air. I verily judge, that these inns, which men
are building their nest in, are not worth a drink of cold water. It
is a rainy and smoky house : best we come out of it, lest we be
choked with the smoke thereof Oh, that my adversaries knew
how sweet my sighs for Christ are, and what it is for a sinner to
lay his head between Christ's breasts and to be over head and
ears in Christ's love ! Alas, I cannot cause paper to speak the
height, and breadth, and depth of it ! I have not a balance to
weigh the worth of my Lord Jesus. Heaven, ten heavens would
not be the beam of a balance to weigh him in. I must give over
praising of him. Angels see but Httle of him. Oh, if* that fair
one would take the mask off his fair face, that I might see him —
a kiss of him through his mask is half a heaven. " O day, dawn !
O time, run fast ! O Bridegroom, post, post fast, that we may
meet ! O Heavens, cleave in two, that that bright face and head
may set itself through the clouds !" Oh, that the corn were ripe,
and this world prepared for his hook ! ^
Sir, be pleased to remember a prisoner's bonds. Grace be with
you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 10, 1637.
LETTER CCXXV.
TO HIS PARISHIONERS
Dearly beloved and longed for in the Lord, my crown and my
joy in the day of Christ, grace be to you, and peace from God our
Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I long exceedingly to know, if the oft-spoken-of match betwixt
you and Christ holdeth ; and if ye follow on to know the Lord.
My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts are of you : while ye
sleep I am afraid of your souls, that they be off the rock ; next to
» Oh, that. 2 Sickle.
350 Rutherford's letters.
my Lord Jesus and this fallen Kiik, ye have the greatest share of
my sorrow, and also of my joy ; ye are the matter of the tears,
care, fear,- and daily prayers of an oppressed prisoner of Christ.
As I am in bonds for my high and lofty One, my royal and princely
Master, my Lord Jesus ; so I am in bonds for you. For I should
have slept in my warm nest, and kept the fat world in my arms,
and the cords of my tabernacle should have been fastened more
strongly, 1 might have sung an evangel ' of ease to my soul and
you for a time, with my brethren, the sons of my Mother, that
were angry at me, and have thrust me out of the vineyard, if I
would have been broken, and drawn on to mire you the Lord's
flock, and to cause you to eat pastures trodden upon with men's
feet, and to drink foul and muddy waters : — but truly the Al-
mighty was a terror to me, and his fear made me afraid. O my
Lord ! judge if my ministry be not dear to me, but not so dear by
many degrees as Christ Jesus my Lord. God knoweth the sad
and heavy Sabbaths I have had since I laid down at my Master's
feet my two shepherds' staves. I tiave been often saying, as it is
written, (Lam. iii. 52, 53,) " My enemies chased me sore like a
bird, without cause : they have cut off my life in the dungeon,
and cast a stone upon me ;" for, next to Christ, I had but one joy,
the apple of the eye of my delights, to preach Christ my Lord, and
they have violently plucked that away from me. And it was to
me like the poor man's one eye, and they have put out that eye,
and quenched my light in the inheritance of the Lord ; — but my
eye is toward the Lord. I know that I shall see the salvation of
God, and that my hope shall not always be forgotten. And my
sorrow shall want nothing to complete it, and to make me say,
" What availeth it me to live ?" if ye follow the voice of a stranger,
of one that cometh into the sheepfold not by Christ the door, but
climbetli up another way. If the man build his hay and stubble
upon the golden foundation, Christ Jesus already laid among you,
and ye follow him, I assure you, the man's work shall burn, and
never bide '^ God's fire, and ye and he both shall be in danger of
everlasting burning except ye repent. Oh, if ^ any pain, any sor-
row, any loss that I can suffer for Christ, and for you, were laid
in pledge to buy Christ's love to you, and that I could lay my dear-
est joys next to Christ my Lord in the gap betwixt you and eter-
nal destruction ! Oh, if ^ I had paper as broad as Heaven and
earth, and ink as the sea and all the rivers and fountains of the
earth, and were able to write the love, the worth, the excellency,
the sweetness, and due praises of our dearest and fairest Well-
beloved ; and then, if ^ ye could read and understand it! What
could I want, if my ministry among you should make a marriage
between llie little bride in those bounds and the Bridegroom ?
Oh, how rich a prisoner were I, if I could obtain of my Lord, (be-
fore whom I stand for you,) the salvation of you all! Oh, what
a prey had I gotten, to have you catched in Christ's net ! O then,
I liad cast out my Lord's lines and his net with a rich gain ! Oh
» Gospel, Luke xii. 19. 2 Endure. 3 That.
Rutherford's letters. 351
then, well-wared ' pained breast and sore ^ back, and crazed body,
in speaking early and late to you ! My Witness is above, your
heaven would be two heavens to me, and the salvation of you all
as two salvations to me. I would subscribe a suspension, and a
fristing ^ of my heaven for many hundred years, (according to
God's good pleasure,) if you were sure in the upper lodging, in our
Father's house, before me. I take to witness Heaven and earth
against you, I take instruments^ in the hands of that sun and
daylight that beheld us, and in the hands of the timber and walls
of that Kirk, if I drew not up a fair contract of marriage betwixt
you and Christ, if I went not with offers betwixt the Bridegroom
and you ; and your conscience did bear you witness, your mouths
confessed, that there were many fair trystes * and meetings drawn
on betwixt Christ and you at communion feasts, and other occa-
sions. There were bracelets, jewels, rings, and love-letters, sent
to you by the Bridegroom. It was told you what a fair dowry ye
should have, and what a house your Husband and ye should dwell
in, and what was the Bridegroom's excellency, sweetness, might,
power, the eternity and glory of his Kingdom, the exceeding deep-
ness of His love, who sought his black wife through pain, fires,
shame, death, and the grave, and swimmed the salt sea for her,
undergoing the curse of the Law, and then was made a curse for
you, and ye then consented, and said, " Even so I take him." I
counsel you to beware of the new and strange leaven of men's in-
ventions, beside and against the word of God, contrary to the oath
of this Kirk, now coming among you. I instructed you of the
superstition and idolatry of kneeling in the instant of receiving
the Lord's supper, and of crossing in baptism, and of the observ-
ing of men's days without any warrant of Christ, our perfect Law-
giver. Countenance not the surplice, the attire of the mass-priest,
the garment of Baal's priests. The abominable bowing to altars
of tree ^ is coming upon you. Hate, and keep yourselves from
idols. Forbear in any case to hear the reading of the new father-
less Service-book,^ full of gross heresies, popish and superstitious
errors, without any warrant of Christ, tending to the overthrow
of preaching. You owe no obedience to the bastard canons : they
are unlawful, blasphemous, and superstitious. All the ceremonies
that lye in Anti-christ's foul womb, the wares of that great Mother
of fornications, the Kirk of Rome, are to be refused. Ye see
whither they lead you. Continue still in the doctrine which ye
have received. Ye heard of me the whole counsel of God. Sew
no clouts upon Christ's robe. Take Christ in his rags and losses,
and as persecuted by men, and be content to sigli and pant up
the mountain, with Christ's cross on your back. Let me be re-
puted a false prophet, (and your conscience once said the contrary,)
' Well expended. 2 Aching.
3 A postponing, with the hope, however, of ultimately obtaining.
■* In consequence of a decision, any one who has an interest in the court, is said to
take instruments in the hands of the clerk, when he means to declare that he claims
the benefit of that decision, and views the matter as settled.
5 Appointments to meet. 6 Wood. 7 Book of Common Prayer.
352 Rutherford's letters.
if your Lord Jesus will not stand by you and maintain you, and
maintain your cause against your enemies.
I have lieard, (and my soul is grieved for it,) that since my de-
parture from you, many among you are turned back from the good
old way, to the dog's vomit again. Let me speak to these men.
It was not without God's special direction, that the first sentence
that ever my mouth uttered to you was that of John ix. 39, " And
Jesus said. For judgment came I into the world, that they which
see not might see, and they which see might be made blind." It
is possible that my first meeting and yours may be when we shall
both stand before the dreadful Judge of the world ; and in the
name and authority of the Son of God, my great King and Master,
I write, by these presents, summonses to those men. I arrest their
souls and bodies to the day of our compearance.^ Their eternal
damnation standeth subscribed, and sealed in Heaven, by the
handwriting of the great Judge of quick and dead ; and I am
ready to stand up, as a preaching witness against such to their
face, on that day, and to say amen to their condemnation, except
they repent. The vengeance of the Gospel is heavier than the
vengeance of the Law : the Mediator's malediction and vengeance
is twice vengeance, and that vengeance is the due portion of such
men ; and there I leave them as bound men, aye and whilP they
repent and amend. Ye were witnesses how the Lord's day was
spent while I was among you. O sacrilegious robber of God's
day, what wilt thou answer the Almighty when he seeketh so
many Sabbaths back again from thee? What will the curser,
swearer, and blasphemer do, when his tongue shall be roasted in
that broad and burning Lake of fire and brimstone ; and what will
the drunkard do, when tongue, lungs, and liver, bones, and all,
shall boil and shall fry in a torturing fire 7 He shall be far from
his barrels of strong drink then, and there is not a cold well of
water for him in Hell. What shall be the case of the wretch, the
covetous man, the oppressor, the deceiver, the earth-worm, who
can never get his wombfuP of clay, when, in the day of Christ,
gold and silver must lye burnt in ashes, and he must compear*
and answer his Judge, and quit his clayey and noughty ^ heaven?
Wo, wo, for evermore, be to the time-turning^ atheist, who hath
one god and one religion for summer, and another god and an-
other religion for winter, and the day of fanning, when Christ
fanneth all that is in his barn-fioor — who hath a conscience for
every fair and market, and the soul of him runneth upon these
oiled wheels, time, custom, the world, and command of men.
Oh, if'' the careless atheist, and sleeping man, who edgetli by^ all
with "God forgive our pastors if they lead us wrong, we must do
as they command," and layeth down his head upon time's bosom,
and giveth his conscience to a deputy, and sleepeth so whill the
1 Appearance. 2 Forever and until ; that is, without possibility of escape.
3 Belly-full. 4 Appear. '^ Having nothing in it.
6 Changing with the times, 7 Oh, that.
8 Sidleth past.
«
Rutherford's letters. 353
smoke of Hell-fire flee ^ up in his throat, and cause him to start
OLit'of is doleful bed ! oh, if '^ such a man would awake. Many
woes are for the over-gilded and gold-plastered hypocrite. A
heavy doom is for the liar and white-tongued flatterer : and the
fleeing ^ book of God's fearful vengeance, twenty cubits long, and
ten cubits broad, that goeth out from the face of God, shall enter
into the house, and in upon the soul of him that stealeth and
sweareth folsely by God's name, (Zech. v. 2, 3.) I denounce
eternal burning, hotter than Sodom's flames, upon the men that
boil in filthy lusts of fornication, adultery, incest, and the like
wickedness ; no room, no, not a foot-broad,^ for such vile dogs
within the clean Jerusalem. Many of you put off" all with this,
" God forgive us, we know no better :" I renew my old answer,
(2 Thes. i. 8,) the Judge is coming in flaming fire, with all his
mighty angels, to render vengeance to all those that know not God,
and believe not. I have often told you, that security will slay you.
All men say they have faith — as many men and women now, as
many saints in Heaven — and all believe, (say ye,) that every foul
dog is clean enough, and good enough for the clean and new
Jerusalem above. Every man hath conversion and the new birth ;
but it is not leel come ;s they had never a sick night for sin ; con-
version came to them in a night-dream. In a word, Hell will be
empty at the day of Judgment, and Heaven pang" full. Alas ! it is
neither easy nor ordinary to believe and to be saved. Many must
stand, in the end, at Heaven's gates; when they go to take out
their faith, they take out a fair nothing, or, (as ye use to speak,)
a blaflum.'' Oh, lamentable disappointment ! I pray you, I charge
you in the name of Christ make fast work of Christ and sal-
vation.
I know there are some believers among you, and I write to you,
O poor broken-hearted believers, all the comforts of Christ in the
Old and New Testaments are yours. Oh, what a Father and
Husband ye have ! Oh, if^ I had pen and ink, and ingine^ to
write of him ! Let Heaven and earth be consolidated into massy
and pure gold, it will not weigh the thousandth part of Christ's
love to a soul, even to me a poor prisoner. Oh, that is a massy
and marvellous love ! Men and angels ! unite your force and
strength in one, ye shall not heave, nor poise it off the ground.
Ten thousand worlds — as many worlds as angels can number,
and then as a new world of angels can multiply — would not all
be the balk ^ of a balance to weigh Christ's excellency, sweetness,
and love. Put ten earths into one, and let a rose grow greater
than ten whole earths, or whole worlds, oh, what beauty would be
in it, and what a smell would it cast ! — but a blast of the breath
of that fairest Rose in all God's paradise, even of Christ Jesus our
Lord, one look of that fairest face would be infinitely, in beauty
and smell, above all imaginable and created glory. I wonder that
» Fly. 2 Oh, that. 3 Flying.
* Foot-breadth. s Lawfully obtained. 6 Craoimed.
7 An illusion. ^ Genius. 9 Beam.
23
354 Rutherford's letters.
men dow bide off* Christ. I would esteem myself blessed, if I
could make an open proclamation, and gather all the world, 'that
are living upon the earth, Jew and Gentile, and all that shall be
born till the blowing of the last trumpet, to flock round about
Christ, and to stand looking, wondering, admiring, and adoring
his beauty and sweetness ; for his fire is hotter than any other fire,
his love sweeter than common love, his beauty surpasseth all
other beauty. When I am heavy and sad, one of his love-looks
would do me meikle world's good.^ Oh, if ye would fall in love
with him, how blessed were I ! how glad would my soul be to help
you to love him ! But amongst us all, we could not love him
enough. He is the Son of the Father's love, and God's delight —
the Father's love lyeth all upon him. Oh, iP all mankind would
fetch all their love, and lay it upon him ! Invite him, and take
him home to your houses, in the exercise of prayer, morning and
evening, as I often desired you ; especially now, let him not want
lodging in your houses, nor lie in the fields, when he is shut out
of pulpits and Kirks. If ye will be content to take Heaven by
violence, and the wind on your face for Christ and his cross, I am
here one who hath some trial of Christ's cross, and I can say, that
Christ was ever kind to me, but he overcometh * himself, (if I may
speak so,) in kindness while I suffer for him. I give you my
word for it, Christ's cross is not so evil as they call it ; it is sweet,
light, and comfortable. I would not be without the visitations of
love, and the very breathings of Christ's mouth when he kisseth,
and my Lord's delightsome smiles and love-embracements, under
my sufferings for him, for a mountain of gold, or for all the honors,
court, and grandeur of velvet kirknien. Christ hath the yolk and
heart of my love. " I am my Beloved's, and my Well-beloved is
mine." Oh, that ye were all hand-fasted^ to Christ! O my
dearly-beloved in the Lord, I would I could change my voice and
had a tongue tuned by the hand of my Lord, and had the art of
speaking of Christ, that I might paint out unto you the worth,
and highness, and greatness, and excellency of that fairest and
renowned Bridegroom ! I beseech you by the mercies of the Lord,
by the sighs, tears, and heart's-blood of our Lord Jesus, by the
salvation of your poor and precious souls, set up® the mountain,
that ye and I may meet before the Lamb's throne, amongst the
congregation of the first-born. Lord grant that that may be the
trysting-place,^ that ye and I may put up our hands together, and
pluck, and eat the apples, off the Tree of Life, and that we may
feast together, and drink together of that pure River of the water
of life, that cometh out from under the Throne of God, and of the
Lamb. Oh, how little is your hand-breadth and span-length of
days here ! Your inch of time is less than when ye and I parted.
Eternity, eternity is coming, posting on with wings — then shall
1 Are able to keep from running upon.
2 Good worth the value of the great world. ' Oh, that.
* Surpasseth. goeth beyond. i Affianced.
6 Begin to climb, determined to reach the summit. '' Appointed place of meeting.
Rutherford's letters. 355
every man's blacks and whites be brought to hght. Oh, how low
will your thoughts be of this fair-skinned but heart-rotten apple,
the vain, vain, feckless ^ world, when the worms shall make their
houses in your eye-holes, and shall eat off the flesh from the ball
of your cheeks, and shall make that body a number of dry bones !
Think not that the common gate^ of serving God, as neighbors
and others do, will bring you to Heaven. Few, few are saved.
The Devil's court is thick ^ and many : he hath the greatest num-
ber of mankind for his vassals. I know this world is a forest of
thorns in your way to Heaven ; but you must go through it. Ac-
quaint yourselves with the Lord : hold fast Christ ; hear his voice
only ; bless his name ; sanctify and keep his day ; keep the New
Commandment, "Love one another :" let the Holy Spirit dwell in
your bodies ; and be clean and holy : love not the world : lie not,
love and follow truth : learn to know God : keep in mind what I
taught you ; for God will seek an account of it, when 1 am far
from you : abstain from all evil, and all appearance of evil : follow
good carefully : seek peace and follow after it : honor your King,
and pray for him : remember me to God in your prayers, I do not
forget you. I told you often, while I was with you, and now I
write it again, heavy, sad and sore, is that stroke of the Lord's
wrath that is coming upon Scotland. Wo, wo, wo to this Harlot-
land ! for they shall take the cup of God's wrath from his hands,
and drink, and spue, and fall, and not rise again. In, in, in with
speed, to your stronghold, ye prisoners of hope ; and hide you
there, whill the anger of the Lord pass ! Follow not the pastors
of this land, for the sun is gone down upon them. As the Lord
liveth, they lead you from Christ, and from the good old way;
yet the Lord will keep the Holy City, and make this withered
Kirk to bud again like a rose, and a field blessed of the Lord.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. The pray-
ers and blessings of a prisoner of Christ, in bonds for him, and for
you, be with you all, Amen.
Your lawful, and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 14, 1G37.
LETTER CCXXVL
TO THE LADY KILCONQUHAIR.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I am glad to
hear that ye have your face homewards towards your Father's
house, now when so many are for a home nearer-hand.^ But
your Lord calleth you to another life and glory than is to be found
hereaway :^ and, therefore, I would counsel you to make sure the
charters and rights * which ye have to salvation. You came to
1 Unsubstantial, worthless. 2 Way, manner. 3 Thronged, crowded.
* Nearer. ^ In this present state. 6 Title-deeds.
356 Rutherford's letters.
this life about a necessary and weighty business, to tryste * with
Christ anent "^ your precious soul, and the eternal salvation of it.
This is the most necessary business ye have in this life ; and
your other adoes^ beside this, are but toys, and feathers, and
dreams, and fancies. This is in the greatest haste, and should
be done first. Means are used in the Gospel to draw on a meeting
betwixt Christ and you. If ye neglect your part of it, it is as if
ye would tear the contract before Christ's eyes, and give up the
match, that there would be no more communing about that busi-
ness. I know that other lovers, beside Christ, are in suit of you,
and your soul hath many wooers ; but I pray you to make a
chaste virgin of your soul, and let it love but one : most worthy is
Christ alone of all your soul's love, howbeit your love were higher
than the Heaven, and deeper than the lowest of this earth, and
broader than this world. Many, alas ! too many, make a common
strumpet of their soul for every lover that cometh to the house.
Marriage with Christ would put your love and your heart by the
gate * out of the way, and out of the eye of all other unlawful
suitors ; and then you have a ready answer for all others, " I am
already promised away to Christ ; the match is concluded, my
soul hath a husband already, and it cannot have two husbands."
Oh, ifs the world did but know what a smell the ointments of
Christ cast, and how ravishing his beauty is, even the beauty of
the fairest of the sons of men, and how sweet and powerful his
voice is, the voice of that one Well-beloved ! Certainly where
Christ cometh, he runneth away with the soul's love, so that it
cannot be commanded. I would far rather look but through the
hole of Christ's door, to see but the one half of his fairest and
most comely face, (for he looketh like Heaven,) suppose I should
never win in ^ to see his excellency and glory to the full, than en-
joy the flower, the bloom, and the chiefest excellency of the glory
and riches of ten worlds. Lord send me, for my part, but the
meanest share of Christ that can be given to any of the indwell-
ers of the New Jerusalem. But I know my Lord is no niggard :
he can, and he becometh him well to give more than my narrow
soul can receive. If there were ten thousand thousand millions
of worlds, and as many heavens, full of men and angels, Christ
would not be pinched to supply all our wants, and to fill us all.
Christ is a well of life ; but who knoweth how deep it is to the
bottom ? This soul of ours hath love, and cannot but love some
fair one : and, oh, what a fair one, what an only one, what an
excellent, lovely, ravishing one, is Jesus ! Put the beauty of ten
thousand thousand worlds of paradises, like the Garden of Eden,
in one ; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colors, all tastes, all
joys, all sweetness, all loveliness in one : oh, what a fair and ex-
cellent thing would that be ? and yet it would be less to that fair
and dearest Well-beloved, Christ, than one drop of rain to the
1 To transact engagements. 2 Concerning. s Occupations.
* Past the path, s That. s Get in.
Rutherford's letters. 357
whole seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths.
Oh, but Christ is Heaven's wonder, and earth's wonder ! What
marvel that his Bride saith, (Cant. v. 16,) " He is altogether
lovely ?" Oh, that black souls will not come and fetch all their
Jove to this fair One? Oh, if I could invite and persuade thou-
sands, and ten thousand times ten thousand of Adam's sons to
flock about my Lord Jesus, and to come and take their fill of love !
Oh, pity for evermore, that there should be such a one as Christ
Jesus, so boundless, so bottomless, and so incomparable in infinite
excellency and sweetness, and so few to take him ! Oh, oh, ye
poor, dry, and dead souls, why will ye not come hither with your
toom 2 vessels, and your empty souls, to this huge, and fair, and
deep, and sweet Well of life ; and fill all your toom ^ vessels ? Oh,
that Christ should be so large in sweetness and worth, and we, so
narrow, so pinched, so ebb,^ and so void of all happiness, — ^and yet
men will not take him ! they lose their love miserably, who will
not bestow it upon this lovely One. Alas ! these five thousand
years, Adam's fools, his w^aster^ heirs, have been wasting and
lavishing out their love and their affections upon black lovers, and
black harlots, upon bits of dead creatures, and broken idols, upon
this and that feckless ^ creature ; and have not brought their love
and their heart to Jesus. Oh, pity, that Fairness hath so few lov-
ers ! Oh, wo, wo to the fools of this world, who run by^ Christ
to other lovers ! Oh, misery, misery, misery, that comeliness can
scarce get three or four hearts in a town or country ! Oh, that
there is so much spoken, and so much written, and so much
thought of creature vanity ; and so little spoken, so little written,
and so httle thought, of my great and incomprehensible and never-
enough wondered at Lord Jesus ! Why should I not curse this
forlorn, and wretched world, that suffereth my Lord Jesus to lye
his lone? ^ O damned souls ! O miskenning^ world ! O blind, O
beggarly, and poor souls ! O bewitched fools ! what aileth you
at Christ that you run so from him ? I dare not challenge provi-
dence, that there are so few buyers, and so little sale for such an
excellent one as Christ. Oh, the depth, and, oh, the height of my
Lord's ways, that pass finding out! but oh, if men would once
be wise, and not fall so in love with their own hell, as to pass by
Christ, and misken^ him! But let us come near, and fill our-
selves with Christ, and let his friends drink, and be drunken, and
satisfy our hollow and deep desires with Jesus. Oh, come all and
drink at this living well ; come, drink and live for evermore ; come,
drink and welcome : " Welcome," saith our fairest Bridegroom :
no man getteth Christ with ill will ; no man cometh and is not
welcome; no man cometh and rueth this voyage : '" all men speak
well of Christ who have been at him : men and angels who know
him will say more than I dow do," and think jnore of him than
1 Oh, that. 2 Empty. 3 Shallow. < Wasteful.
5 Worthless. 6 Past. • ^ By himself alone, 8 Mistaking.
9 Not to recognize, i" Journey. " Am able to do.
358 Rutherford's letters.
they can say. Oh, if ^ I were misted and bewildered in my Lord's
love ! Oh, if ' I were fettered and chained to it ! Oh, sweet pain
to be pained for a sight of him ! Oh, hving death, oh, good death,
oh, lovely death, to die for love of Jesus ! Oh, that I should have
a sore "^ heart, and a pained soul, for the want of the love of this
and that idol ! Wo, wo to the mistaking of my miscarrying heart,
that gapeth and crieth for creatures, and is not pained, and cut,
and tortured, and in sorrow for the want of a soul-fill ^ of Christ !
Oh, that thou wouldst come near, my Beloved ! O my fairest
One, why standest thou afar ! Come hither, that I may be sati-
ated with thy excellent love. Oh, for a union ! oh, for a fellow-
ship with Jesus ! Oh, that I could buy with a price that lovely
One, even suppose that Hell's torments for a while were the price.
I cannot believe but Christ will rue upon his pained lovers, and
come and ease sick hearts, who sigh and swoon for want of Christ;
who dow bide Christ's love to be nice?'' What heaven can be
there liker to Hell, than to lust, and green,^ and dwine,* and fall
aswoon '' for Christ's love, and to want it ? Is not this Hell and
Heaven woven through other ?^ Is not this pain and joy, sweet-
ness and sadness, to be in one web, the one the weft, the other the
warp? therefore, I would that Christ would let us meet and join
together, the soul and Christ in each other's arms. Oh, what
meeting is like this, to see blackness and beauty, contemptibleness
and glory, highness and baseness, even a soul and Christ kiss
each other ! Nay, but when all is done, I may be wearied in
speaking and writing, but, oh, how far am I from the right ex-
pression of Christ or his love ? I can neither speak nor write feel-
ing, nor tasting, nor smelling : come feel, and smell, and taste
Christ and his love, and ye shall call it more than can be spoken.
To write how sweet the honeycomb is, is not so lovely as to eat
and suck the honeycomb : one night's rest in a bed of love with
Christ will say more than heart can think, or tongue can utter.
Neither need Ave fear crosses, nor sigh, nor be sad for anything
that is on this side of Heaven, if we have Christ. Our crosses
will never draw blood of the joy of the Holy Ghost, and peace of
conscience. Our joy is laid up in such a high place, as tempta-
tions cannot climb up to take it down. This world may boast '
Christ, but they dare not strike ; or if they strike they break their
arm in fetching a stroke upon a rock. Oh, that we could put our
treasures in Christ's hand, and give him our gold to keep, and our
crown. Strive, mistress, to thring '° through the thorns of this life,
to be at Christ; tine '^ not sight of him, in this cloudy and dark
day. Sleep with him in your heart in the night. Learn not at
1 Oh, that. 2 Aching. 3 As much as will fill the soul.
* Who can be without Christ's love, while they yet long for it, and be in a desirable,
happy frame.
6 Most earnestly to desire, or long for. 6 Pine away. "^ Into a swoon.
8 Promiscuously. 9 Threaten, with angry looks or words.
1" To press through, as in a crowd or thicket. " Lose.
Rutherford's letters. 359
the world to serve Christ, but speer ' at himself the way : the
world is a false copy, and a lying guide to follow.
Remember my love to your husband : I wish all to him that I
have written here. The sweet presence, the long-lasting good-
will of our God, the warmly, "^ and lovely comforts of our Lord
Jesus be with you. Help me, his prisoner, in your prayers ; for I
remember you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, August 8, 1637.
LETTER CCXXVIL
TO MY LORD CRAIGHALL.
My Lord, — I received one letter of your Lordship's from C,
and another of late from A. B., wherein 1 find your Lordship in
perplexity what to do. But let me entreat your Lordship not to
cause yourself to mistake truth and Christ, because they seem to
encounter with your peace and ease. My Lord, remember that a
prisoner hath written it to you, As the Lord liveth, if ye put to
your hand with other apostates in this land, to pull down the
sometime 3 beautiful Tabernacle of Christ in this land, and join
hands with them in one hair-breadth to welcome Antichrist to
Scotland, there is wrath gone out from the Lord against you and
your house. If the terror of a king hath overtaken you, and
your Lordship looketh to sleep in your nest in peace, and to take
the nearest shore, there are many ways, too, too many ways, how
to shift Christ with some ill-washen^ and foul distinctions; but
assure yourself, suppose a king should assure you that he would
be your god, (as he shall never be for that piece of service,) that
your clay-god shall die, and your carnal counsellors, when your
conscience shall storm against you, and ye complain to them, will
say, " What is that to us ?" Believe not that Christ is weak, or
that he is not able to save. Of two fires that ye cannot pass, take
the least. Some few years will bring us all out in our blacks and
whites before our Judge. Eternity is nearer to you than ye are
aware of To go in a course of defection, when an enlightened
conscience is stirring, and looking you in the face, and crying
within you, "That ye are going in an evil way," is a step to the
sin against the Holy Ghost. Either many of this land are near
that sin, or else I know not what it is. And if this, for which I
now suffer, be not the way of peace and the King's highway to
salvation, I believe there is not a way at all. There is not such
breadth and elbow-room in the way to Heaven as men believe,
Howbeit, this day be not Christ's, the morrow shall be his.
I believe assuredly that our Lord will repair the old waste
places, and his ruined house in Scotland ; and that this wilder-
1 Inquire. 2 Warm. 3 Once. < Ill-washed.
360 Rutherford's letters.
ness shall yet blossom as the rose. My very worthy, and dear
Lord, wait upon Him who hideth his face from the House of
Jacob, and look for him. Wait patiently a little upon the Bride-
groom's return again, that your soul may live, and that ye may
rejoice witli the Lord's inheritance. I dare pawn my soul and
life for it, that if ye take this storm with borne-down Christ, your
sky shall quickly clear, and your fair morning dawn. Think, (as
the truth is,) that Christ is just now saying, "And will ye also
leave me?" Ye have a fair occasion to gratify Christ now, if ye
will stay with him, and want the night's sleep, with your suffer-
ing Saviour, one hour, now when Scotland hath fallen asleep,
and leaveth Christ to fend for ' himself. I profess myself but a
weak, feeble man. When I came first to Christ's camp, I had
nothing to maintain this war, or to bear me out in this encounter,
and I am little better yet. But, since I find furniture, armor,
and strength from the consecrated Captain, the Prince of our
Salvation, who was perfected through suffering, I esteem suffer-
ing for Christ a king's life. I find that our wants qualify us for
Christ ; and, howbeit your Lordship write that ye despair to attain
to such a communion and fellowship, (which I would not have you
to think,) yet, would ye nobly and courageously ventiue to inake
over to Christ, for his honor now lying at the stake, your estate,
place, and honor, he would lovingly and largely requite you, and
give you a king's word for a recompense. Venture upon Christ's
" Come," and I dare swear ye will say, (as it is in Psalm xvi. 7,)
" I bless the Lord who gave me counsel." My very worthy Lord,
many eyes in both the Kingdoms are upon you now, and the eye
of our Lord is upon you. Acquit yourself manfully for Christ :
spill ^ not this good play: subscribe a blank submission, and put
it into Christ's hands : win, win the blessings and prayers of your
sighing and sorrowful Mother-church seeking your help : win
Christ's bond, (who is a king of his word,^) for a hundred-fold
more even in this life.
If a weak man hath passed a promise to a king, to make a
slip to Chi'ist (if we look to flesh and blood, I wonder not of it:
possibly I might have done worse myself,) add not further guilti-
ness to go on in such a scandalous and foul way. Remember
that there is a wo, wo to him by whom offences come. This wo
came out of Christ's mouth, and it is heavier than the wo of the
Law. It is the Mediator's vengeance, and that is two vengeances
to those who are enlightened. Free yourself from unlawful an-
guish, about advising and resolving. When the truth is come to
your hand, hold it fast, go not again to make a new search and
inquiry for truth. It is easy to cause conscience to believe as ye
will, not as ye know; it is easy for you to cast your light into
prison, and detain God's truth in unrighteousness — but that
prisoner will break ward, to your incomparable torture. Fear
1 Shift for. 2 Spoil.
3 A Scottish phrase, expressive of one who has power to keep, and who always does
keep, his word.
Rutherford's letters. 361
your light, and stand in awe of it ; for it is from God. Think
what honor it is in tliis life also to be enrolled to the succeeding
ages amongst Christ's witnesses, standing against the re-entry of
Antichrist. I know certainly that your light looking to two
ways, and to the two sides, crieth shame upon the course that
they would counsel you to follow. The way, that is halver and
copartner with the smoke of this fat world, and with ease, smell-
eth strong of a foul and false way.
The Prince of peace. He who brought again from the dead the
great Shepherd of his sheep, by the blood of the Eternal Cove-
nant, establish you, and give you sound light, and counsel you to
follow Christ. Remember my obliged service to my Lord, your
father, and mother, and your lady.
Grace be with you.
Your Lordship's,
At all obliged obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, August 10, 1G37.
LETTER CCXXVIIL
TO MR. JAMES FLEMING
Reverend, and wkll-beloved in our Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be unto you. — I received your letter, which hath re-
freshed me in my bonds. I cannot but testify unto you, my dear
brother, what sweetness I find in our Master's cross ; but, alas,
what can I either do or suffer for him ! If I my lone ' had as
many lives as -there have been drops of rain since the creation, I
would think them too little for that lovely One, our Well-beloved ;
but my pain and ray sorrow is above my sufferings, that I find not
ways to set out the praises of his love to others. I am not able,
by tongue, pen, or sufferings, to provoke many to fall in love with
him : but He knoweth, whom I love to serve in the Spirit, what I
would do, and suffer by his own strength, so being that I might
make my Lord Jesus lovely and sweet to many thousands in this
land. I I'hink it amongst God's wonders, that he will take any
praise or glory, or any testimony to his honorable cause, from
such a forlorn sinner as I am ; but when Christ worketh, he
needeth not ask the question, by whom he will be glorious. I
know, seeing his glory at the beginning did shine out of poor
nothing, to set up such a fair house for men and angels, and so
many glorious creatures, to proclaim his goodness, power and wis-
dom, that, if I were burnt to ashes, out of the smoke and powder
of my dissolved body, he could raise glory to himself His glory
is his end : oh, that I could join with him, to make it my end !
I would think that fellowship with him sweet and glorious. But
alas ! few know the guiltiness that is on my part : it is a wonder,
1 Myself alone.
362 Rutherford's letters.
that this good cause hath not been marred and spilled ' in my
foul hands. But I rejoice in this, that my sweet Lord Jesus hath
found something ado, even a ready market for his free grace, and
incomparable and matchless mercy, in my wants ; only my loath-
some wretchedness and my wants have qualified me for Christ,
and the riches of his glorious grace : — he behooved to take me for
nothing, or else to want me. Few know the unseen and private
reckonings betwixt Christ and me ; yet his love, his boundless ^
love would not bide away, nor stay at home with himself; and
yet T dow nof^ make it welcome as I ought, when it is come un-
sent for and without hire.
How joyful is my heart that ye write that ye are desirous to
join with me in praising, for it is a charity to help a dyvour ^ to
pay his debts ; but when all have helped me, my name shall stand
in his account-book under ten thousand thousands of sums unpaid.
But it easeth my heart that his dear servants will but speak of my
debts to such a sweet Creditor. I desire that he may lay me in
his own balance and weigh me, if I would not fain have a feast of
his boundless love made to my own soul, and to many others.
One thing I know, that we shall not all be able to come near his
excellency with eye, heart, or tongue ; for he is above all created
thoughts. All nations before him are as nothing, and less than
nothing : he sitteth in the circuit of Heaven, and the inhabitants
of the earth are as grasshoppers before him. Oh, that men would
praise him !
Ye complain of your private case : alas ! I am not the man who
can speak to such an one as ye are. Any sweet presence which I
have had in this town, is, I know, for this cause, that I might ex-
press and make it known to others ; but I never find myself nearer
Christ, that royal and princely One, than after a great weight and
sense of deadness and gracelessness. I think, that the sense of
our wants, when withal we have a restlessness, and a sort of
spiritual impatience under them, and can make a din, because we
want Him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open
door to Christ ; and, when we think we are going backward, be-
cause we feel deadness, we are going forward : for the more sense,
the more life, and no sense argueth no life. There is no sweeter
fellowship with Christ, than to bring our wounds and our sores to
him. But for myself, I am ashamed of Christ's goodness and love,
since the time of my bonds ; for he hath been pleased to open up
new treasures of love and felt sweetness, and give visitations of
love and access to himself, in this strange' land. I would think
a fill of his love young and green heaven; and when he is pleased
to come, and the tide is in, and the sea full, and the King and a
poor prisoner together in the house-of-wine, the black tree of the
cross is not so heavy as a feather. I cannot, I dow not, but give
Christ an honorable and glorious testimony.
I see that the Lord can ride through his enemies' bands, and
triumph in the sufferings of his ov/n ; and that this blind world
1 Spoiled. 2 Am not able. ' Bankrupt.
Rutherford's letters. 363
geeth not, that sufferings are Christ's armor, wherein he is victo-
rious : and they who contend with Zion see not what he is doing-,
when they are set to work, as under-smiths and servants, to the
work of refining of tlie saints, (Satan's hand also, by them, is
at the melting of the Lord's vessels of mercy ;) and their office in
God's house is to scour and cleanse vessels for the King's table. I
marvel not to see them triumph, and sit at ease in Zion ; for our
Father must lay up his rods, and keep them carefully for his own
use : our Lord cannot want fire in his house ; his furnace is in
Zion, and his fire in Jerusalem : but little know the adversaries the
counsel and the thoughts of the Lord.
And for your complaints of your ministry : — I now think all I do
too little : plainness, freedom, watchfulness, fidelity, shall swell
upon you, in exceeding large comforts, in your sufferings. The
feeding of Christ's lambs in private visitations, and catechizing, in
painful preaching, and fair, honest, and free warning of the flock,
is a sufferer's garland. Oh, ten thousand times blessed are they,
who are honored of Christ to be faithful and painful, in wooing a
bride to Christ ! My dear brother, I know that ye think more on
this, than I can : and I rejoice that your purpose is, in the Lord's
strength, to back your wronged Master ; and to come out, and call
yourself Christ's man, when so many are now denying him, as
fearing that Christ cannot do ' for himself and them. I am a lost
man forever, or this, this is the way to salvation, even this way,
which they call heresy, that men now do mock and scoff at. I am
confirmed now, that Christ will accept of his servant's sufferings
as good service to him, at the day of his appearance ; and, that ere
it be long he will be upon us all, and men in their blacks and
whites shall be brought out before God, angels and men. Our
Master is not far otf; oh, if^ we could wait on and be faithful!
The good will of Him who dwelt in the bush, the tender favor
and love, the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, be with you.
Help me with your prayers ; and desire, from me, other brethren,
to take courage for their Master.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, August 15, 1637.
LETTER CCXXIX.
TO MR. HUGH MACKAIL.
My very dear Brother, — Ye know that men may take
their sweet fill of the sour Law, in grace's ground ; and betwixt
the Mediator's breasts, and this is the sinner's safest way ; for
there is a bed for wearied sinners to rest them in, in the New
Covenant, though no bed of Christ's making to sleep in. The Law
1 Act. '^ Oh, that.
364 Rutherford's letters.
shall never be my doomster/ by Christ's grace ; if I get no more
good of it— I shall find a sore enough doom in the Gospel, to hum-
ble, and to cast me down — it is (I grant) a good rough friend, to
follow a traitor to the bar, and to back "^ him, till he come to Christ.
We may blame ourselves, who cause the Law to crave well-paid
debt, to scare us away from Jesus, and dispute about a righteous-
ness of our own, a world in the moon, a chimera, and a night-
dream, that pride is father and mother to. There cannot be a
more humble soul than a behever ; it is no pride for a drowning
man to catch hold of a rock.
I rejoice that the wheels of this confused world are rolled, and
cogged,^ and driven according as our Lord willeth. Out of what-
ever airth ^ the wind blow, it will blow us on our Lord. No wind
can blow our sails overboard ; because Christ's skill, and honor of
his wisdom, are empawned and laid down at the stake for the sea-
passengers, that he shall put them safe off his hand on the shore, in
his Father's known bounds, our native home ground.
My dear brother, scaur ^ not at the cross of Christ ; it is not seen
yet what Christ will do for you, when it cometh to the worst: he
will keep his grace, till ye be at a strait, and then bring forth the
decreed birth for your salvation. Ye are an arrow of his own
making, let him shoot you against a wall of brass, your point shall
keep whole. I cannot, for multitude of letters, and distraction of
friends, prepare what I would for the times : I have not one hour
of spare time, suppose the day were forty hours long.
Remember me in prayer. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, September 5, 1G37.
LETTER CCXXX.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE AND CHRISTIAN LADY, MY
LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace, be to your Ladyship. — God
be thanked ye are yet in possession of Christ, and that sweet child.
I pray God that the former may be a sure heritage, and the latter
a loan for your comfort, while ye do good to this poor, afflicted,
withered Mount Zion. And who knoweth, but our Lord hath
comforts laid up in store for her and you ? I am persuaded, that
Christ hath bought you past the Devil, and Hell, and sin, that
they have no claim to you ; — and that is a rich and invaluable
mercy. Long since ye were half challenging death's cold kind-
ness, in being so slow and sweer^ to come to loose a tired prisoner :
but ye stand in need of all the crosses, losses, changes, and sad
1 One who pronounces sentence or doom. 2 To dog.
3 To cog a wheel is to place a stone or piece of wood wedgewise between the ground
and the wheel, to prevent it from moving.
* Quarter. s Boggle. 6 Reluctant, unwilhng.
Rutherford's letters. 365
hearts that befell you since that time. Christ knoweth that the
body of sin unsubdued will take them all, and more : we know
that Paul had need of tiie Devil's service, to buffet him ; and far
more we. But, my dear, and honorable Lady, spend your sand-
glass' well. I am sure that you have law to raise a suspension*
against all that devils, men, friends, worlds, losses, hell, or sin can
decree against you. It is good that your crosses will but convoy ^
you to Heaven's gates : in can they not go ; the gates shall be
closed upon them, when ye shall be admitted to the throne. Time
standeth not still, eternity is hard at our door. Oh, what is laid
up for you ! therefore, harden your face against the v/ind : and
the Lamb, your Husband, is making ready for you. The Bride-
groom would fain have that day, as gladly as your Honor would
wish to have it ; — he hath not forgotten you.
I have heard a rumor of the Prelates' purpose to banish me :
but let it come, if God so will ; the other side of the sea is ray
Father's ground as well as this side. I owe bowing to God, but
no servile bowing to crosses : I have been but too soft in that. I
am comforted that I am persuaded fully that Christ is halfer^
with me in this well-born and honest cross ; and if he claim right
to the best half of my troubles, (as I know he doth to the whole,)
I shall remit over to Christ what I shall do in this case. I know
certainly, that my Lord Jesus will not mar nor spill ^ my suffer-
ings ; he hath use for them in his house.
Oh, what it worketh on me,^ to remember that a stranger, who
cometh not in by the door, shall build hay and; stubble upon the
golden foundation which I laid amongst that people at Anwoth !
But I know that Providence looketh not asquint, but looketh
straight out, and through all men's darkness : oh, that I could
wait upon the Lord ! 1 had but one eye, one joy, one delight,
even to preach Christ ; and my Mother's sons were angry at me,
and have put out the poor man's one eye, and what have I be-
hind ? I am sure that this sour world hath lost my heart deserv-
edly, but, oh, that there were a days-man to lay his hands upon
us both, and determine upon my part of it. Alas, that innocent
and lovely truth should be sold ! My tears are little worth, but
yet for this thing I weep : I weep, alas, that my fair and lovely
Lord Jesus should be miskent^ in his own house ! It reckoneth
little of five hundred the like of me : — yet the water goeth not over
faith's breath ; yet our King liveth.
I write the prisoner's blessing : the good-will, and long-lasting
kindness, with the comforts of the very God of peace be to your
Ladyship, and to your sweet child. Grace, grace be with you.
Your Honor's,
At all obedience, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
1 Glass for measuring time.
* To sue for the decision of a court to suspend the execution of a sentence or decree.
3 Tb coTiyoy, to accompany part of the way. * Equal sharer. 5 Spoil, ruin.
6 What anxiety it causeth me. ' Not known, not appreciated.
366 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCXXXL
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE MY LORD LINDSAY.
Right honorable, and my very good Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to your Lordship. — Pardon my boldness to express
myself to your Lordship at this so needful a time, when your
wearied and friendless Mother-kirk' is looking round about her, to
see if any of her sons doth really bemoan her desolation : there-
fore, my dear and worthy Lord, I beseech you in the bowels of
Christ, pity that widow-like sister and spouse of Christ. I know
that her Husband is not dead, but he seemeth to be in another
country, and seeth well, and beholdeth who are his true and ten-
der-hearted friends, who dare venture under the water to bring
out to dry-land sinking truth, and who of the nobles will cast up^
their arm. to ward a blow off the crowned head of our royal Law-
giver who reigneth in Zion, who will plead and contend for Jacob,
in the day of his controversy.
It is now time, my worthy, and noble Lord, for you who are the
little nurse-fathers (under our sovereign Prince) to put on courage
for the Lord Jesus, and to take up a fallen orphan, speaking out
of the dust, and to embrace in your arms Christ's bride. He hath
no more in Scotland that is the delight of his eyes, than that one
little sister, whose breasts were once well-fashioned. She once
ravished her Well-beloved with her eyes, and overcame him with
her beauty: "She looked forth as the morning, fair as the moon,
clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners : her stature
was like the palm-tree, and her breasts like clusters of grapes, and
she held the King in his galleries." (Cant. iv. 9, and vi. 10, and
vii. 5, 7.) But now the crown is fallen from her head, and her
gold waxed dim, and our white Nazarites are become black as the
coal. Blessed are they who will come out and help Christ against
the mighty ! The shields of the earth and the nobles are debtors
to Christ for their honor, and should bring their glory and honor
to the New Jerusalem ; (Rev. xxi. 24.) Alas, that great men
should be so far from sulDJecting themselves to the sweet yoke of
Christ, that they burst his bonds asunder, and think they dow
not go on foot when Christ is on horseback, and that every nod of
Christ, connnanding as a king, is a load like a mountain of iron ;
and, therefore, they say, "This Man shall not reign over us; we
must have another king than Christ in his own house." There-
fore, kneel to Christ, and kiss the Son, an' let him have your
Lordship's vote, as your alone ^ Lawgiver. I am sure that when
you leave the old waste inn of this perishing life, and shall reckon
with your liost, and depart hence, and take shipping, and make
over for eternity, which is the yonder side of time, — and a sand-
1 Mother-church. 2 Throw up. 3 Only.
Rutherford's letters, 367
glass of three-score short years is running out, — to look over your
shoulder, then, to that which ye have done, spoken, and suffered
for Christ, his dear bride, (that he ransomed with that blood Avhich
is more precious than gold.) and for truth, and the freedom of
Christ's Kingdom, your accounts will more sweetly smile and
laugh upon you than if you had two worlds of gold to leave to
your posterity. O my dear Lord, consider that our Master, eter-
nity, and judgment, and the last reckoning, will be upon us in the
twinkling of an eye. The blast of the Last Trumpet, now hard
at hand, will cry down all acts of Parliament, all the determina-
tions of pretended Assemblies, against Christ our Lawgiver. There
will be siiortly a proclamation by One standing in the clouds, that
time shall be no more, and that courts with kings of clay shall be
no more ; and prisons, confinements, forfeitures of nobles, wrath
of kings, hazard of lands, houses, and name, for Christ, shall be
no more. This world's span-length of time is drawn now to less
than half an inch, and to the point of the evening of the day of
this old gray-haired world; and, therefore, be fixed and fast for
Christ and his truth for a time ; and fear not him whose life goeth
out at his nostrils, who shall die as a man. I am persuaded
Christ is responsal ^ and law-biding, to make recompense for any-
thing that is hazarded or given out for him — losses for Christ are
but our goods given out in bank in Christ's hand. Kings earthly
are well-favored little clay gods, time's idols ; but a sight of our
invisible King shall decry and darken all the glory of this world.
At the day of Christ, truth shall be truth, and not treason. Alas !
it is pitiful that silence, when the thatch of our Lord's house hath
taken fire, is now the flower and bloom of court and state wisdom ;
and to cast a covering over a good profession, (as if it blushed at
light,) is thought a canny ^ and sure way through this life; but
the safest way, I am persuaded, is to tine^ and win with Ciuist,
and to hazard fairly for him ; for Heaven is but a company of no-
ble venturers for Christ. I dare hazard my soul that Christ will
grow green, and blossom like the Rose of Sharon yet in Scotland;
howbeit now his leaf seemeth to wither, and his root to dry up.
Your noble ancestors have been enrolled among the worthies
of this nation, as the sure friends of the Bridegroom, and valiant
for Christ : I hope that you will follow on to come to the streets
for the same Lord. The world is still at yea and nay with Christ.
It shall be your glory, and the sure foundation of your liouse,
(now when houses are tumbling down, and birds building their
nests, and thorns and briers are growing up, where nobles did
spread a table,) if you engage your estate and nobility for this
noble King Jesus, with whom the created powers of the world are
still in tops.* All the world shall fall before him, and, as God
liveth ! every arm lifted up to take the crown off his royal head,
or that refuseth to hold it on his head, shall be broken from the
shoulder blade. The eyes that behold Christ weep in sackcloth,
and Avallow in his blood, and will not help, even these eyes shall
1 Responsible. 2 Prudent. ^ To lose. * In wrangling debate.
368 Rutherford's letters.
rot away in their eye-holes. Oh, if ye and the nobles of this land
saw the beauty of that world's wonder, Jesus our King, and the
glory of Him who is angels' wonder, and Heaven's wonder for
excellency ! Oh, what would men count of clay estates, of time-
eaten life, of worm-eaten and moth-eaten worldly glory, in com-
parison of that fairest, fairest of God's creation, the Son of the
Father's delights. I have but small experience of suffering for
him ; but let my Judge and Witness in Heaven lay ray soul in
the iDalance of justice, if I find not a young heaven, and a little
paradise of glorious comforts and soul-delighting love-kisses of
Christ here beneath the moon, in suffering for him and his truth :
and that the glory, joy, and peace, and fire of love, which I thought
had been kept whill supper-time, when we shall get leisure to
feast our fill upon Christ, I have felt in glorious beginnings in my
bonds for this princely Lord Jesus. Oh ! it is my sorrow, my daily
pain, that men will not come and see. I would now be ashamed
to believe that it should be possible for any soul to think that he
could be a loser for Christ, suppose he should lend Christ the lord-
ship of Lindsay, or some such great worldly estate. Therefore,
my worthy, and dear Lord, set now your face against the oppo-
sites^ of Jesus, and let your soul take courage to come under his
banner, to appear as his soldier for him ; and the blessings of a
falling kirk, the prayers of the prisoners of hope who wait for
Zion's joy, and the good will of Him who dwelt in the bush, and
it burned not, shall be with you.
To his saving grace I recommend your Lordship and your
House, and am still Christ's prisoner, and
Your Lordship's obliged servant,
In his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXXXn.
TO MY LORD BOYD.
My very honorable, and good Lord, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you.— I am glad to hear that you, in the morning of
your short day, mind Christ, and that you love the honor of his
crown and kingdom. I beseech your Lordship to begin now to
frame your love, and to cast it in no mould but one, that it may
be for Christ only ; — for when your love is now in the framing
and making, it will take best with Christ. If any other than
Jesus get a grip^ of it, when it is green and young, Christ will be
an unco ^ and strange world to you. Promise the lodging of your
soul first away to Christ, and stand by your first covenant, and
keep to Jesus, that he may find you honest. It is easy to master
1 Oh, that. 2 Opponents. 3 Hold, gripe. * Cold.
Rutherford's letters. 369
an arrow, and to set it right, ere the string be drawn ; but when
once it is shot, and in the air, and the flight begun, then ye have
no more power at all to command it. It were a blessed thing, if
your love could now level only at Christ, that his fair face were
the black of the mark ye shot at ; for when your love is loosed,
and out of j^our grips,' and in its motion to fetch home an idol,
and hath taken a whorish gadding journey, to seek an unknown
and strange lover, ye shall not then have power to call home the
arrow, or to be master of your love — and ye will hardly give Christ
what ye scarcely have yourself.
I speak not this, as if youth itself could fetch heaven and
Christ. Believe it, my Lord, it is hardly credible what a nest of
dangerous temptations youth is ; how inconsiderate, foolish, proud,
vain, heady, rash, profane, and careless of God, this piece of your
life is ; so that the Devil findeth in that age a garnished and well-
swept house, and seven devils worse than himself, for then affec-
tions are on horseback, lofty, and stirring ; then the old man hath
blood, lust, much will, and little wit, and hands, feet, wanton eyes,
profane ears, as his servants, and as kings' officers at command,
to come and go at his will. Then a green conscience is as
souple=^ as the twig of a young tree. It is for every way, every
religion ; every lewd course prevaileth with it : and, therefore, oh,
what a sweet couple, what a glorious yoke are youth and grace,
Christ and a young man ! This is a meeting not to be found in
every town. None who have been at Christ can bring back to
your Lordship a report answerable to his worth ; for Christ can-
not be spoken of, or commended according to his worth. "Come
and see," is the most faithful messenger to speak of him : little
persuasion Avould prevail where this was. It is impossible in the
setting out of Christ's love, to lie and pass over truth's line. The
discourses of angels, or love-books written by the congregation of
seraphim, (all their wits being conjoined and melted into one,) would
forever be in the nether side of truth, and of plentifully declaring
the thing as it is. The infiniteness, the boundlessness of that in-
comparable excellency that is in Jesus, is a great word. God
send me, if it were but the relics and leavings, or an ounce weight
or two, of his matchless love ; and suppose I never got another
heaven, (provided this blessed fire were evermore burning,) I could
not but be happy forever. Come hither, then, and give out your
money wisely for bread ; come hither, and bestow your love.
I have cause to speak this, because except ye possess and en-
joy Christ, ye will be a cold friend to his Spouse — for it is love to
the husband that causeth kindness to the wife. I dare swear it
were a blessing to your house, the honor of your honor, the flower
of your credit, now in your place, and as far as ye are able, to
lend your hand to your weeping mother, even your oppressed and
spoiled mother-kirk. If ye love her, and bestir yourself for her,
and hazard the lordship of Boyd for the recovery of her veil,
1 Out of your own keeping. 2 Supple.
24
370 Rutherford's letters.
(which the smiting watchmen have taken from her,) then surely
her husband will scorn to sleep in your common' or reverence.
Bits of lordships are httle to Him who hath many crowns on his
head, and the kingdoms of the world in the hollow of his hand.
Court, honor, glory, riches, stability of houses, favor of princes,
are all on his finger ends. Oh, what glory were it to lend your
honor to Christ, and to his Jerusalem. Ye are one of Zion's born
sons ; your honorable and Christian parents would venture you
upon Christ's errands: therefore, I beseech you, by the mercies of
God, by the death and wounds of Jesus, by the hope of your glo-
rious inheritance, and by the comfort and hope of the joyful pres-
ence ye would have at the water-side, when ye are putting your
foot in the dark grave, take courage for Christ's truth, and the
honor of his free kingdom ; for, howbeit ye be a young flower,
and green before the sun, ye know not how soon death will
cause you cast your bloom, and wither root, and branch, and
leaves ; and, therefore, write up what ye have to do for Christ,
and make a treasure of good works, and begin in time. By ap-
pearance ye have the advantage of the brae;* see what ye can
do for Christ, against these who are waiting whill Christ's Tab-
ernacle fall, that they may run away with the boards thereof, and
build their nests on Zion's ruins. They are blind who see not
louns^ now pulUng up the stakes, and breaking the cords, and
rending the curtains of Christ's, (sometimes,') beautiful tent in
this land. Antichrist is lifting that tent up upon his shoulders,
and going away with it ; and when Christ and the Gospel are
out of Scotland, dream not that your houses shall thrive, and that
it will go well with the nobles of the land. As the Lord liveth !
the streams of your waters shall become pitch, and the dust of
your land brimstone, and your land shall become burning pitch,
and the owl and the raven shall dwell in your houses : and where
your table stood, there shall grow briers and nettles, Isa. xxxiv.
9, 11. The Lord gave Christ and his Gospel as a pawn to Scot-
land. The watchmen have fallen foul, and lost their part of the
pawn ; and who seeth not, that God hath dried up their right eye,
and their right arm, and hath broken the shepherds' staves, and
that men are treading in their hearts upon such unsavory salt,
that is good for nothing else. If ye, the nobles, put away the
pawn also, and refuse to plead the controversy of Zion with the
professed enemies of Jesus, ye have done with it. Oh ! where is
the courage and zeal now of the ancient nobles of this land, who
with their swords, and hazard of life, honor, and houses, brought
Christ to our hands? And now the nobles cannot be but guilty
of shouldering out Christ, and of murdering the souls of their
posterity, if they shall hide themselves, and lurk in the lee-side
of the hill, till the wind blow down the temple of God. It goeth
now under the name of wisdom, for men to cast their cloak over
1 Under obligation to you. ^ Slope, hill.
3 Low, worthless fellows. * Once.
Rutherford's letters. 371
Christ and their profession, as if Christ were stolen goods, and
durst not be avouched. But though this be reputed a piece of
pohcy, yet God esteemeth such men to be but state fools and court
gowks,' whatever they, or other heads-of-wit' like to them, think
of themselves, since their damnable silence is the ruin of Christ's
kingdom. Oh, but it be true honor and glory to be the fast
friends of the Bridegroom, and to own Christ's bleeding head,
and his forsaken cause, and to contend legally, and in the wisdom
of God, for our sweet Lord Jesus, and his kingly crown ! But I
will believe that your Lordship will take Christ's honor to heart,
and be a man in the streets (as the prophet speaketh) for the Lord
and his truth. To his rich grace and sweet presence, and the
everlasting consolation of the promised Comforter, I recommend
your Lordship, and am
Your Lordship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, September 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXXXIIL
TO HIS WORTHY, AND MUCH HONORED FRIEND, FULK ELIES.
Worthy, and much honored in our Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. — I am glad of our more than paper acquaint-
ance. Seeing we have one Father, it reckoneth the less, though
we never saw one another's face. I profess myself most un-
worthy to follow the camp of such a worthy and renowned Cap-
tain as Christ. Oh, alas ! I have cause to be grieved, that men
expect anything of such a wretched man as I am. It is a won-
der to me, if Christ can make anything of my noughty,^ short,
and narrow love to him ; surely it is not worth the up-taking.
2. As for our lovely and beloved Church in Ireland, my heart
bleedeth for her desolation ; but I believe that our Lord is only
lopping the vine-trees, but not intending to cut them down, or
root them out. It is true, seeing we are heart-atheists by nature,
and cannot take providence aright, (because we halt and crook*
ever since we fell,) we dream of a halting providence ; as if God's
ellwand, whereby he measureth joy and sorrow to the sons of men,
were crooked and unjust, because servants ride on horseback, and
princes go on foot : but our Lord dealeth good and evil, and to
some one portion, or to others of both, by ounce weights ; and
meastueth them in a just and even balance. It is but folly to
measure the Gospel by summer or winter weather — the summer-
sun of the saints shineth not on them in this life. How should
we have complained, if the Lord had turned the same providence
that we now stomach at, upside down, and had ordered matters
thus, that first the saints should have enjoyed Heaven, glory, and
ease, and then Methuselah's days of sorrow and daily miseries ?
1 Boobies. * Wiseacres. 3 Having nothing in it, * Walli lamelj.
372 Rutherford's letters.
We would think a short heaven no heaven ; certainly his ways
pass finding out.
3. Ye complain of the evil of heart-atheism : but it is to a
greater atheist than any man can be, that ye write of that. Oh,
light findeth not that reverence and fear which a plant of God's
setting should find in our soul ! How do we, by nature, as
others, detain and hold captive the truth of God in unrighteous-
ness, and so make God's light a bound prisoner ? And even when
the prisoner breaketh the jail, and cometh out in belief of a God-
head, and in some practice of holy obedience, how often do we,
of new, lay hands on the prisoner, and put our light again in fet-
ters? Certainly there cometh great mist and clouds from the
lower part of our soul, our earthly aflfections, to the higher part,
which is our conscience, either natural or renewed : a smoke in
a lower house breaketh up, and defileth the house above. If we
had more practice of obedience, we should have more sound light.
1 think, lay aside all other guiltiness, that this one, the violence
done to God's candle, in our soul, were a sufficient dittay' against
us. There is no helping of this but by striving to stand in awe
of God's light. Lest light tell tales of us, we desire little to hear ;
but since it is not without God, that light sitteth neighbor to will,
(a lawless lord,) no marvel that such a neighbor should leaven our
judgment, and darken our light. I see there is a necessity that
we protest against the doings of the Old Man, and raise up a
party against our worst half, to accuse, condemn, sentence, and
with sorrow bemoan the dominion of sin's kingdom ; and withal
make law, in the New Covenant, against our guiltiness ; for
Christ once condemned sin in the flesh, and we are to condemn it
over again. And if there had not been such a thing as the grace
of Jesus, I should have long since given up with Heaven, and
with the expectation to see God. But grace, grace, free grace,
the merits of Christ for nothing, white and fair, and large Saviour-
mercy, (which is another sort of thing than creature-mercy, or
Law mercy, yea, a thousand degrees above angel-mercy,) have
been, and must be, the rock that we drowned souls must swim to.
New washing, renewed application of purchased redemption, by
that sacred blood that sealeth the free Covenant, is a thing of
daily and hourly use to a poor sinner. Till we be in Heaven our
issue of blood shall not be quite dried up ; and, therefore, we
must resolve to apply peace to our souls from the new and living
way ; and Jesus who cleanseth and cureth the'leprous soul, lovely
Jesus, must be our song on this side of Heaven's gates : and even
when we have won the castle, then must we eternally sing.
" Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who hath saved us, and washed
us in his own blood."
I would counsel all the ransomed ones to learn this song, and
to drink and be drunk with the love of Jesus. O fairest, O high-
est, O loveliest One, open the well ! Oh, water the burnt and
withered travellers with this love of thine ! I think it is possible
' Indictment.
Rutherford's letters. 373
on earth to build a young New Jerusalem, a little new heaven of
this surpassing love. God, either send me more of this love, or
take me quickly over the water, where I may be filled with his
love. My softness cannot take with want. I profess I bear not
hunger of Christ's love fair. I know not if I play foul play with
Christ, but I would have a link of that chain of his providence
mended, in pining and delaying the hungry on-waiters. For my-
self, I could wish that Christ would let out upon me more of that
love. Yet to say Christ is a niggard to me, I dare not ; and if I
say I have abundance of his love, I should lie. I am half strait-
ened ' to complain, and cry, " Lord Jesus, hold thy hand no longer."
Worthy sir, let me have your prayers, in my bonds. Grace be
with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXXXIV.
TO JAMES LINDSAY.
Dear Brother, — The constant and daily observing of God's
going alongst with you, in his coming, going, ebbing, flowing,
embracing and kissing, glooming "^ and striking, giveth me, (a
witless and lazy observer of the Lord's way and working) a
heavy stroke. Could I keep sight of him, and know when I
want, and carry as became me in that condition, I would bless
my case.
But, 1. For desertions ; I think them like lying lea ^ of lean and
weak land for some years, whill it gather sap for a better crop. It
is possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moon-light.
Oh, if I could but creep one foot, or half a foot, nearer in to
Jesus, in such a dismal night as that, when he is away, I should
think it an happy absence !
2. If I knew that the Beloved were only gone away for trial,
and further humiliation, and not smoked out of the house with
new provocations, I would forgive desertions, and hold my peace
at his absence: but Christ's bought absence, (that I bought with
my sin,) is two running boils at once, one upon each side ; and
what side then can I lie on ?
3. I know that as night and shadows are good for flowers, and
moon-light and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's
absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in
it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger,
and furnisheth a fair field to faith to put forth itself, and to exer-
cise its fingers in gripping * it seeth not what.
4. It is mercy's wonder, and grace's wonder, that Christ will
lend a piece of the lodging, and a back chamber beside himself,
1 Almost impelled, * Frowning. 3 Land in grass. * Catching.
374 Rutherford's letters.
to our lusts ; and that he and such swine should keep house to-
gether in our soul. For suppose they couch and contract them-
selves into little room when Christ cometh in, and seem to lie as
head under his feet, yet they often break out again ; and that a
foot of the Old Man, or a leg or arm nailed to Christ's cross,
looseth the nail, or breaketh out again ; and yet Christ, beside
this unruly and misnurtured' neighbor, can still be making heaven
in the saints, one way or other. May I not say, "Lord Jesus,
what doest thou here ?" Yet here he must be. But I will not
lose my feet to go on into this depth and wonder ; for free mercy,
and infinite merits, took a lodging to Christ and us, beside such a
loathsome guest as sin.
5. Sanctification and mortification of our lusts, are the hardest
part of Christianity. It is, in a manner, as natural to us to leap
when we see the New Jerusalem, as to laugh when we are tickled:
joy is not under command, or at our nod, when Christ kisseth :
but oh, how many of us would have Christ divided into two halves,
that we might take the half of him only, and take his oflftce,
Jesus and Salvation ! but " Lord" is a cumbersome word, and to
obey and work out our own salvation, and to perfect holiness, is
the cumbersome and stormy north side of Christ, and that which
we eschew and shift.
6. For your question, the access that reprobates have to Christ,
(which is none at all, for to the Father in Christ neither can they,
nor will they come, because Christ died not for them ; and yet, by
law, God and justice overtaketh them,) I sa}'^, first, there are with
you more worthy and learned than 1 am, Messrs. Dickson, Blair,
and Hamilton, who can more fully satisfy you ; but I shall speak
in brief what I think of it, in these assertions. First, All God's
justice toward man and angels floweth from an act of absolute,
sovereign free-will of God, who is our Former and Potter, and we
are but clay ; for if he had forbidden to eat of the rest of the trees
of the Garden of Eden, and commanded Adam to eat of the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that command no doubt had been
as just as this, — "Eat of all the trees, but not at all of the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil." The reason is, because his will is
before his justice, by order of nature, and what is his will is his
justice, and he willeth not things without himself because they are
just. God cannot, God needeth not hunt sanctity, holiness, or
righteousness from things without himself, and so not from the
actions of men or angels ; because his will is essentially holy and
just, and the prime rule of holiness and justice ; as the fire is natu-
rally light, and inclineth upward, and the earth heavy and incli-
neth downward. The second assertion then, that God saith to
reprobates, "Believe in Christ, (who hath not died for your salva^
tion,) and ye shall be saved," is just and right ; because his eternal
and essentially just will hath so enacted and decreed. Suppose
natural reason speak against this, this is the deep and special mys-
tery of the Gospel. God hath obliged, hard and fast, all the rep-
1 Unsubdued by chastisement.
Rutherford's letters. 375
rebates of the visible Church to beheve this promise, " He that
beheveth shall be saved :" and yet in God's decree and secret in-
tention, there is no salvation at all decreed and intended to repro-
bates ; and yet the obligation of God, being from his sovereign free-
will, is most just, as is said in the first assertion. Third assertion,
Tlie righteous Lord hath right over the reprobates and all reason-
able creatures, that violate his commandments. This is easy.
Fourth assertion, The faith that God seeketh of reprobates, is, that
they rely upon Christ, as despairing of their own righteousness,
leaning wholly and withal humbly, as weary and loaded, upon
Christ, as on the Resting-stone laid in Zion. But he seeketh not
that, without being weary of their sin, they rely upon Christ, as
mankind's Saviour ; for to rely on Christ, and not to be weary of
sin, is presumption, not faith. Faith is ever neighbor to a contrite
spirit ; and it is impossible that faith can be, where there is not
a cast down and contrite heart, in some measure, for sin. Now
it is certain, that God commandeth no man to presume. Fifth as-
sertion, Then reprobates are not absolutely obliged to believe that
Christ died for them in particular ; for, in truth, neither reprobates
nor others are obliged to believe a lie : only they are obliged to be-
lieve that Christ died for them, if they be first weary, burdened,
sin-sick, and condemned in their own consciences, and stricken
dead and killed with the Law's sentence, and have indeed em-
braced him as offered, which is a second and subsequent act of
faith, following after a coming to him, and a closing with him.
Sixth assertion, Reprobates are not formally guilty of contempt of
God, and misbehef,i because they apply not Christ and the promi-
ses of the Gospel to themselves in particular ; for so they should
be guilty, because they believe not a lie, which God never obliged
them to believe. Seventh assertion. Justice hath a right to punish
reprobates, because, out of pride of heart, confiding in their own
righteousness, they rely not upon Christ, as a Saviour of all them
that come to him. This God may justly oblige them unto; be-
cause in Adam they had perfect ability to do; and men are guilty
because they love their own inability, and rest upon themselves,
and refuse to deny their own righteousness, and to take them to
Christ, iu whom there is righteousness for wearied sinners. Eighth
assertion, It is one thing to rely, lean, and rest upon Christ, in hu-
mility and weariness of spirit, and denying our own righteousness,
believing him to be the only righteousness of wearied sinners ; and
it is another thing to believe that Christ died for me, John, Thomas,
Anna, upon an intention and decree to save us by name. For, 1st,
The first goeth first, the latter is always after in due order. 2ndly,
The first is faith, the second is a fruit of faith ; and, 3rdly, the first
obligeth reprobates and all men in the Visible Kirk, the latter obli-
geth only the weary and laden, and so only the elect and effectu-
ally called of God. Ninth assertion. It is a vain order; '-I know
not if Christ died for me, John, Thomas, Anna, by name; and,
therefore, I dare not rely on him." The reason is, because it is
1 Wrong belief.
376 Rutherford's letters.
not faith, to believe God's intention and decree of election at the
first, ere ye be wearied. Look first to your own intention and
soul. If ye find sin a burden, and can, and do rest, under that
bnrdeu, npon Christ ; if this be once, now come and beheve in par-
ticular, or rather apply by sense, (for, in my judg-ment, it is a fruit
of belief, not beUef,) and feeling tlie good-will, intention, and gra-
cious purpose of God anent ' your salvation. Hence, because tliere
is malice in reprobates, and contempt of Christ, guilty they are,
and justice hath law against them ; and, which is the mystery,
they cannot come up to Christ, because he died not for them ; but
their sin is, that they love their inability to come to Christ, and he
who loveth his chains, deserveth chains.
And thus in short. Remember my bonds.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, September 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXXXV.
TO MY LORD CRAIGHALL.
My Lord, — I cannot expound your Lordship's contrary tides,
and these temptations wherewith ye are assaulted, to be any other
thing than Christ trying you, and saying unto you, "And will ye
also leave me?" I am sure that Christ hath a great advantage
against you, if ye play foul play to him, in that the Holy Spirit
hath done his part, in evidencing to your conscience, that this is
the way of Christ, wherein ye shall have peace ; and the other, as
sure as God liveth, is the Antichrist's way : therefore, as ye fear
God, fear your light, and stand in awe of a convincing conscience.
It is far better for your Lordship to keep your conscience, and to
hazard in such an honorable cause your place, than wilfully, and
against your light, to come under guiltiness. Kings cannot heal
broken consciences ; and when death and judgment shall corn-
prise ^ your soul, your counsellors, and others, cannot become cau-
tion' to justice for you. Ere it be long, our Lord will put a final
determination to acts of Parliament, and men's laws, and will
clear you, before men and angels, of men's unjust sentences. Ye
received honor, and place, and authority, and riches, and reputa-
tion from your Lord, to set forward and advance the liberties and
freedom of Christ's Kingdom. Men, whose consciences are made
of stoutness, think little of such matters, which, notwithstanding,
encroach directly upon Christ's prerogative royal. So would men
think it a light matter for Uzzah to put out his hand to hold the
Lord's falling ark ; but it cost him his life. And who doubteth,
but a carnal friend will advise you to shut your window, and pray
beneath your breath. " Ye make too great a din with your pray-
ers ;" so would a head-of-wit * speak, if he were in Daniel's place.
• Concerning. 2 To comprise, legally to attach for debt
3 Security. 4 Wiseacre.
Rutherford's letters. 377
But men's overgilded reasons will not help you, when your con-
science is like to rive with a double charge. Alas, alas ! when
will this world learn to submit their wisdom to the wisdom of God?
I am sure that your Lordship hath found the truth ; go not then
to search for it over again ; for it is conunon for men to make
doubts, when they have a mind to desert the truth. Kings are
not their own men ; their ways are in God's hand. I rejoice, and
am giad, that ye resolve to walk with Christ, howbeit his court be
thin. Grace be with your Lordship.
Your Lordship's,
In his sweet Master and Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, September 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXXXVL
TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Peace be to you from God
our Father, and from our Lord Jesus.
I am laid low, when I remember what I am, and that my out-
side casteth such a lustre when I find so little within. It is a won-
der that Christ's glory is not defiled, running tinough such an un-
clean and impure channel. But I see that Christ will be Christ,
in the dreg and refuse of men. His art, his shining wisdom, his
beauty, speak loudest in blackness, weakness, deadness; yea, in
nothing. I see nothing, no money, no worth, no good, no life, no
deserving, is the ground that Omnipotency delighteth to draw
glory out of. Oh, how sweet is the inner side of the walls of
Christ's house, and a room beside himself! My distance from him
maketh me sad. Oh, that we were in other's arms ! Oh, that the
middle things betwixt us were removed ! I find it a difficult mat-
ter to keep all stots' with Christ. When he laugheth, I scarce
believe it, I would so fain have it true. But I am like a low- man
looking up to a high mountain, whom weariness and fainting
overcometh. I would climb up, but I find that I do not advance
in my journey as I would wish ; yet I trust that he will take me
home against night. I marvel not that Antichrist in his slaves is
so busy : but our crowned King seeth and beholdeth, and will arise
for Zion's safety.
I am exceedingly distracted with letters, and company that
visit me ; what I can do, or time will permit, I shall not omit.
Excuse my brevity, for I am straitened. Remember the Lord's
prisoner: I desire to be mindful of you. Grace, grace be with
you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1G37.
1 To keep pace with, to maintain equal ground with. Slot is the rebound of a balL
2 Short, not tall.
378 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCXXXVII.
TO THE LAIRD OF GAITGIRTH.
Much honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I
can do no more than thank you on paper, and remember you to j
Him whom I serve, for kindness and care of a prisoner.
1 bless the Lord, that the cause I suffer for, needeth not to blush
before kings : Christ's white, honest, and fair truth needeth neither
to wax pale for fear, nor to blush for shame. I bless the Lord,
who hath graced you to own Christ now, when so many are
afraid to profess him, and hide him, for fear they suffer loss by
avouching him. Alas, that so many in these days are carried
with the times ! as if their conscience rolled upon oiled wheels, so
do they go any way the wind bloweth them : and, because Christ
is not market-sweet,' men put him away from them.
Worthy, and much honored sir, go on to own Christ, and his
oppressed truth : — the end of sufferings for the Gospel, is rest and
gladness. Light and joy are sown for the mourners in Zion, and
the harvest, (which is of God's making, for time and manner,) is
near : crosses have right and claim to Christ in his members, till
legs and arms, and whole mystical Christ be in heaven. There
will be rain, and hail, and storms, in the saints' clouds, ever-till
God cleanse with fire the works of the creation, and till he burn
the botch-house '^ of heaven and earth, that men's sins hath sub-
jected unto vanity.
They are blessed who suffer and sin not, for suffering is the
badge that Christ hath put upon his followers. Take what way
we can to Heaven, the way is hedged up with crosses ; there is
no way but to break through them. Wit and wiles, shifts and
laws, will not find out a way round the cross of Christ, but we
must through. One thing, by experience, my Lord hath taught
me, that the waters betwixt this and Heaven may all be ridden,
if we be well horsed ; I mean, if we be in Christ ; and not one
shall drown by the way, but such as love their own destruction.
Oh, if we could wait on for a time, and believe in the dark the
salvation of God ! At least we are to believe good of Christ, till
he gives us the slip, (which is impossible,) and to take his word
for caution,^ that he shall fill up all the blanks in his promises,
and give us what we want ; but to the unbeliever, Christ's testa-
ment is white, blank, unwritten paper.
Worthy, and dear sir, set your face to Heaven, and make you
to stoop at all the low entries in the way, that ye may receive the
Kingdom as a child. " Without this," He that knew the way,
said, " there is no entry in," Oh, but Christ is willing to lead a
poor sinner ! Oh, what love my poor soul hath found in him. in
' Desirable, and, therefore, sought after in the open market.
2 House that has been marred or botched j an allusion to the ruin which sin has
brought upon the world. ' Security.
Rutherford's letters. 379
the house of my pilgrimage ! Suppose that love in Heaven, and
earth, were lost, I dare swear, it may be found in Christ.
Now the very God of peace establish you, till the day of the
glorious appearance of Cluist.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1C37.
LETTER CCXXXVIIL
TO THE LADY GAITGIRTH.
Much honored and Christian Lady, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. — I long to hear how it goeth with you and your
children.
I exhort you not to lose breath, nor to faint in your journey.
The way is not so long to your home as it was, it will wear to
one step or an inch at length, and ye shall come ere long to be
within your arm-length of the glorious crown. Your Lord Jesus
did sweat and pant, ere he got up that mount ; he was at,
" Father, save me," with it. It was he who (Psalm xxii. 14,)
said, "I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint"
— Christ was as if they had broken him upon the wheel — " My
heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels." (Ver.
15.) " My strength is dried up like a potsherd." I am sure, ye
love the way the better, that his holy feet trod it before you.
Crosses have a smell of crossed and pained Christ. I believe that
your Lord will not leave you to die your lone ^ in the way. I
know that ye have sad hours, when the Comforter is hid under a
veil, and when ye inquire for him, and find but a toom^ nest.
This, I grant, is but a cold good-day, when the seeker misseth
Him whom the soul loveth ; but even his unkindness is kind, his
absence lovely, his mask a sweet sight, till God send Christ him-
self, in his own sweet presence. Make his sweet comfoits your
own, and be not strange, and shame-faced with Christ. Homely '
dealing is best for him, it is his liking. When your winter storms
are over, the summer of your Lord shall come ; your sadness is
with child of joy, he will do you good in the latter-end.
Take no heavier lift of your children than your Lord alloweth.
Give them room beside your heart, but not in the yolk of your
heart, where Christ should be ; for then they are your idols, not
your bairns. If your Lord take any of them home to his house,
before the storm come on, take it well. The owner of the orchard
may take down two or three apples off his own trees, before mid-
summer, and ere they get the harvest sun : and it would not be
seemly that his servant, the gardener, should chide him for it.
Let our Lord pluck his own fruit at any season he pleaseth ; they
are not lost to you, they are laid up so well, as that they are
coffered in Heaven, where our Lord's best jewels lye. They are
1 By yourself alone. 2 Empty. 3 Familiar.
380 Rutherford's letters.
all free goods that are there ; death can have no law to arrest
anything that is within the walls of the New Jerusalem.
All the saints, because of sin, are like old rusty horologes, that
must be taken down, and the wheels scoured and mended, and
set up again in better case than before. Sin hath rusted both
soul and body ; our dear Lord, by death, taketh us down to scour
the wheels of both, and to purge us perfectly from, the root and
remainder of sin ; and we shall be set up in better case than
before. Then pluck up your heart ; Heavea is yours, and that is
a word which few can say.
Now, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and the very God of
peace, confirm and establish you, to the day of the appearance of
Christ our Lord.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXXXIX.
TO MR. MATTHEW MOWAT.
Reverend and dear Brother,— I am refreshed with your
letters. I would take all well at my Lord's hands that he hath
done, if I knew that I could do my Lord any service in my suffer-
ing ; suppose my Lord would make a stop-hole ' of me, to fill a
hole in the wall of his house, or a pinning ^ in Zion's new work.
For any place of trust in my Lord's house, as steward, or cham-
berlain, or the like, surely I think myself, (my very dear brother,
I speak not by any proud figure or trope,) unwortliy of it ; nay, I
am not worthy to stand behind the door ; if my head, and feet,
and body were half out, half in, in Christ's house, so that I saw
the fair face of the Lord of the house, it would still my greening ^
and love-sick desires. When I hear that the men of God are at
work, and speaking in the name of our Lord Jesus, I think my-
self but an outcast, or outlaw, chased from the city, to lye on the
hills, and live amongst the rocks and out-fields. Oh, that I might
but stand in Christ's out-house, or hold a candle in any low vault
of his house ! But I know this is but the vapors that arise out
of a quarrelous and unbelieving heart to darken the wisdom of
God. And your fault is just mine, that I cannot believe my
Lord's bare and naked word. I must either have an apple to
play me with, and shake hands with Christ, and have seal cau-
tion,'' and witness to his word, or else I count myself loose ; how-
beit, I have the word and faith of a king. Oh, I am made of
unbelief, and cannot swim but where my feet may touch the
ground ! Alas, Christ under my temptations is presented to me
' Anything to stop up a hole with.
2 A small stone used in building to fill up the interstices between the larger stones.
3 Longing with earnest desire. ^ Security.
Rutherford's letters. 381
as lying waters, as a dyvour ' and a cozener ! We can make
such a Christ, as temptations, casting us in a night-dream, do
feign and devise ; and temptations represent Christ ever unhke
himself, and we in our folly listen to the Tempter.
If I could minister one saving word to any, how glad would
my soul be ! But I myself, which is the greatest evil, often mis-
take the cross of Christ ; for I know if we had wisdom, and knew
well that ease slayeth us fools, we would desire a market where
we might barter or niffer ^ our lazy ease with a profitable cross ;
howbeit there be an outcast^ natural betwixt our desires and trib-
ulation. But some give a dear price and gold for physic, which
they love not ; and buy sickness, howbeit they wish rather to have
been whole than to be sick.
But surely, brother, ye shall have my advice, (howbeit, alas ! I
cannot follow it myself,) not to contend with the honest and faith-
ful Lord of the house ; for, go he, or come he, he is aye gracious in
his departure. There are grace, and mercy, and loving kindness
upon Christ's back parts ; and when he goeth away, the proportion
of his face, the image of that fair Sun that stayeth in eyes, senses,
and heart, after he is gone, leaveth a mass of love behind it in the
heart. The sound of his knock at the door of his Beloved, after
he is gone and passed, leaveth a share of joy and sorrow both : so
we have something to feed upon till he return : and he is more
loved in his departure, and after he is gone, than before ; as the
day in the declining of the sun, and towards the evening, is often
most desired.
And as for Christ's cross, I never received evil of it, but what
was of mine own making ; when I miscooked Christ's physic, no
marvel that it hurt me. For since it was on Christ's back, it hath
always a sweet smell, and these 1600 years it keepeth the smell
of Christ : nay, it is older than that too, for it is a long time since
Abel first handseled the cross, and had it laid upon his shoulder;
and down from him, all alongst to this very day, all the saints
have known what it is. I am glad that Christ hath such a re-
lation to this cross, and that it is called the cross of our Lord Jesus,
(Gal. vi. 14,) his reproach, (Heb. xiii. 13,) as if Christ would claim
it as his proper goods, and so it cometh into the reckoning among
Christ's own property ; if it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who
is not the author nor owner of sin, would not own it.
I wonder at the enemies of Christ, (in whom malice hath run
away with wisdom, and will is up, and wisdom down,) that they
would essay to lift up tlie Stone laid in Zion. Surely it is not
laid in such sinking ground as that they can raise it, or remove it :
for when we are in their belly, and they have swallowed us down,
they will be sick, and spue us out again. I know that Zion and
her Husband cannot both sleep at once ; I believe that our Lord
once again will water with his dew the withered hill of Mount
Zion in Scotland, and come down, and make a new marriage
again, as he did long since. Remember our Covenant.
1 Bankrupt. 2 Exchange. 3 Quarrel.
382 Rutherford's letters.
Your excuse for your advice to me is needless. Alas ! many sit
beside light, as sick folks beside meat, and cannot make use of it.
Grace be with you.
Your brother in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXL.
TO MR, JOHN MEINE.
Dear Brother, — I received your letter. — 1 cannot but testify
under mine own hand, that Christ is still the longer the better,
and that this time is the time of loves. When I have said all I
can, others may begin and say that I have said nothing of him.
I never knew Christ to ebb or flow, wax or wane ; his winds turn
not ; when he seemeth to change, it is but we who turn our wrong
side to him, I never had a plea^ with him, in my hardest con-
flicts, but of mine own making. Oh, that I could live in peace
and good neighborhood with such a second, and let him alone !
My unbelief made many black lies, but my recantation to Christ
is not worth the hearing. Surely he hath borne with strange
gawds'^ in me : he knoweth my heart hath not natural wit to keep
quarters with such a Saviour.
Ye do well to fear your backsliding, I had stood sure, if I had,
in my youth, borrowed Christ to be my bottom ; but he that
beareth his own weight to Heaven, shall not fail to shp and sink.
Ye had no need to be barefooted among the thorns of this apostate
generation, lest a stob strike up^ into your foot, and cause you to
halt all your days. And think not that Christ will do with you
in the matter of suffering, as the Pope doth in the matter of sm.
Ye shall not find that Christ will sell a dispensation, or give a
dyvour's < protection against crosses. Crosses are proclaimed as
common accidents to all the saints, and in them standeth a part
of our communion with Christ; but there lyeth a sweet casualty
to the cross, even Christ's presence and his comforts, when they
are sanctified.
Remember my love to your father and mother, Grace be with you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXLL
TO JOHN FLEMING, BAILLIE OF LEITH.
Much honored in the Lord, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. — I am still in good terms with Christ ; however my Lord's
> duarrel 2 Bad customs.
3 A prick run up. 4 Bankrupt's.
Rutherford's letters. 383
wind blow, I have the advantage of the calm and sunny side of
Christ. Devils, and Hell, and Devil's servants, are all blown
blind, in pursuing the Lord's little bride ; they shall be as a night-
dreain,'who fight against Mount Zion.
Worthy sir, 1 hope that ye take to heart the worth of your call-
ing. This great fair and meeting of the people shall skail,' and
the port is open for us. As fast as time weareth out, we flee*
away : eternity is at our elbow. Oh, how blessed are they, who,
in time, make Christ sure for themselves ! Salvation is a great
errand. I find it hard to fetch Heaven. Oh, that we would take
pains on our lamps, for the Bridegroom's coming. The other side
of this world shall be turned up incontinently, and up shall down,
and those that are weeping in sackcloth will triumph on white
horses, with Him whose name is the Word of God. Those dying
idols, the fair creatures that we whorishly love better than our
Creator, shall pass away like snow-water. The Godhead, the
Godhead, a communion with God in Christ, to be halvers with
Christ of the purchased house and inheritance in Heaven, should
be our scope and aim.
For myself, when 1 lay my accounts, oh, what telhng, oh, what
weighing is in Christ ! Oh, how soft are his kisses ! Oh, love,
love surpassing in Jesus ! I have no fault to that love, but that
it seemeth to deal niggardly with me ; I have httle of it. Oh,
that I had Christ's seen and read bond, subscribed by himself, for
my fill of it ! What garland have I, or what crown, if I looked
right on things, but Jesus? Oh, there is no room in us on this
side of the water for that love ! This narrow bit of earth, and
these ebb ^ and narrow souls can hold little of it, because we are
full of rifts. I would that glory, glory would enlarge us, (as it
will,) and make us tight, and close up our seams and rifts, that
we might be able to comprehend it, which yet is incomprehensible.
Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXLH.
TO THE LADY ROWALLAN.
Madam, — Though not acquainted, I am bold in Christ to
speak to your Ladyship on paper. I rejoice in our Lord Jesus, on
your behalf, that it hath pleased Him whose love to you is as old
as himself to manifest the savor of his love, in Christ Jesus, to
your soul, in the revelation of his will and mind to you, now
when so many are shut up in unbelief. Oh, the sweet change
which ye have made, in leaving the black kingdom of this world
and sin, and coming over to our Bridegroom's new Kingdom, to
> Disperse. » Fly. 3 Shallow.
384 Rutherford's letters.
know, and be taken with the love of the beautiful Son of God.
I beseech you, madam, in the Lord, to make now sure work, and
see that the old house be casten down, and razed from the foun-
dation, and that the new building of your soul be of Christ's own
laying ; for then wind nor storm shall cither loose it, or shake it
asunder. Many now take Christ by guess ; be sure that it be
he, and only he, whom ye have met with : his sweet smell, his
lovely voice, his fair face, his sweet working in the soul, will not
lie ; they will soon tell if it be Christ indeed — and I think that
your love to the saints speaketh that it is he — and, therefore, I
say, be sure that ye take Christ himself, and take him with his
Father's blessing. His Father alloweth him well upon you ;
your lines are well fallen ; it could not have been better, nor so
well with you, if they had not fallen in these places : in Heaven
or out of Heaven, there is nothing better, nothing so sweet and
excellent as the thing ye have lighted on, and therefore hold you
with Christ. Joy, much joy may ye have of him ; but take his
cross with him cheerfully. Christ and his cross are not separable
in this life, howbeit Christ and his cross part at Heaven's door,
for there is no house-room for crosses in Heaven. One tear, one
sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one thought of trouble can-
not find lodging there : they are but the marks of our Lord Jesus,
dovi^n in this wide inn, and stormy country, on this side of death :
sorrow and the saints are not married together ; or suppose it
were so, Heaven would make a divorce.
I find that his sweet presence eateth out the bitterness of sor-
row and suffering. I think it a sweet thing, that Christ saith of
my cross, "Half mine;" and that he divideth these sufferings
with me, and taketh the larger share to himself; nay, that I and
my whole cross are wholly Christ's. Oh, what a portion is Christ !
Oh, that the saints would dig deeper in the treasures of his wis-
dom and excellency !
Thus recommending your Ladyship to the good- will and tender
mercies of our Lord, I rest
Your Ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, September 7, 1G37.
LETTER CCXLin.
for marion mack naught.
Much honored and dearest in our sweet Lord Jesus,
— Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father, and from our
Lord Jesus.
I know that the Lord will do for ' your town. I hear that the
Bishop is afraid to come amongst you : for so it is spoken in this
town. And many now rejoice here to pen a supplication to the
I To do for, to act for.
Rutherford's letters. 385
Council, for bringing me home to ray place, and for repairing other
wrongs done in the country : and see if you can procure that three
or four hundred in the country, noblemen, gentlemen, country-
men, and citizens subscribe it — the more the better. It may be
that it will affright the Bishop, and, by law, no advantage can be
taken against you for it. I have not time to write to Carlton and
to Knockbrex ; but I would you did speak to them in it, and let
them advise with Carlton. Mr. A. thinketh well of it, and I think
others will approve it.
I am still in good case with Christ, my court ' is no less than it
was, the door of the Bridegroom's house-of-wine is open, when
such a poor stranger as I come athort.^ I change, but Christ abi-
deth still the same.
They have put out my one poor eye, my only joy, to preach
Christ, and to go errands betwixt him and his bride. What my
Lord will do with me, I know not ; it is like that I shall not win-
ter in Aberdeen, but where it shall be else, I know not. There are
some blossomings of Christ's Kingdom in this town, and the smoke
is rising, and the ministers are raging ; but I love a rumbling and
roaring devil best.
I beseech you in the Lord, my dear sister, to wait for the salva-
tion of God. Slack not your hands in meeting to pray. Fear not
flesh and blood : we have been all over-feared, and that gave
louns ^ the confidence to shut me out of Galloway.
Remember my love to John Carsen, and Mr. John Brown. I
never could get my love off that man ; I think Christ hath
something to do with him. Desire your husband from me, not to
think ill of Christ for his Cross. Many misken^ Christ, because
he hath the cross on his back ; but he will cause us all to laugh
yet. I beseech you, as ye would do anything for me, to remember
my Lady Marischall to God, and her son the Earl Marischall, es-
pecially her Christian daughter, my Lady Pitsligo.
I shall go to death with it, that Christ will return again to Scot-
land, with salvation in his wings, and to Galloway.
Grace be with you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, September 7, 1637.
LETTER CCXLIV.
TO MARION MACKNAUGHT.
" And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people : all that
burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth
be gathered together against it." — Zech. xii. 3.
Well beloved Sister, — I have been sparing to write to you,
because I was heavy at the proceedings of our late Parliament.
1 Favor. 2 Across.
3 Low, mean fellows. * To misken, not to recognize.
386 Rutherford's letters.
Where law should have been, they would not give our Lord, Je-
sus, fair law and justice, nor the benefit of the house, to hear either
the just grievances, or the humble supplications of the servants of
God. Nothing resteth, but that we lay our grievances before our
crowned King Jesus, who reigneth in Zion. And howbeit it be
true, that the Acts of the Perth Assembly for conformity are estab-
lished, and the King's power to impose the surplice, and other
mass-apparel, upon ministers, be confirmed ; yet what men con-
clude, is not scripture. Kings have short arms to overturn Christ's
throne ; and our Lord hath been walking and standing upon his
feet at this Parliament, when fifteen earls and lords, and forty-four
commissioners for burrows, with some barons, have voted for our
kirk, in face of a King, who, with much awe and terror, with his
own hand wrote up the voters for or against himself Long be-
fore this Kirk, in the second Psalm, the ends of the earth, Scot-
land and England, were gifted of the Father to his Son Christ ;
and that is an old Act of Parliament decreed by our Lord, and
printed four thousand years ago — their Acts are but yet printing.
The first Act shall stand, let all the potentates of the world, who
love Christ's room better than himself, rage as they please. Though
the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, yet there is a
river that cometh out of the sanctuary, and the streams of it re-
fresh the City of God. That well is not yet cried down in Scot-
land, nor can it dry up ; therefore, still believe and trust in God's
salvation. If you knew the whole proceedings, it is the Lord's
merc}^ that matters have gone at our Parliament as they have
gone. The Lord Jesus, in our King's ears, to his great provoca-
tion and grief, hath gotten many witnesses ; and we saw in all,
the Son of God overturning their policy, and making the world
know how well he loveth his poor sun-burnt bride in Scotland —
the Lord liveth, and blessed be the God of our salvation.
For the matter betwixt your husband and Carlton, I trust iu
God it shall be removed. It hath grieved me exceedingly. I have
dealt with Carlton, and shall deal ; put it off yourself upon the
Lord, that it burden you not.
I have heard of your daughter's marriage : I pray the Lord Je-
sus to subscribe the contract, and to be at the banquet, as he was
at the marriage in Cana of Galilee. Show her from me, that
though it be true that God's children have prayed for her, yet the
promise of God is made to her prayers and faith especially : and,
therefore, I would entreat her to seek the Lord, to be at the wed-
ding ; let her give Christ the love of her virginity and espousals,
and choose him first as her husband, and that match shall bless
the other. It is a new world she entereth into, and, therefore, she
hath need of new acquaintance with the Son of God, and of a re-
newing of her love to him, whose love is better tiian wine : 1 Cor.
vii. 29, " The time is short, let the married be as though they were
not married ;" (ver. 30,) " They that weep, as though they weeped
not ; they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not ; they that buy,
as though they possessed not ;" (ver. 31,) "They that use this
Rutherford's letters. 387
world, as though they used it not : for the fashion of this world
passeth away." Grace, grace be her portion from the Lord. I
know that you have a care on you of it, that all be right : but let
Christ bear all. You need not pity him, (if I may say so ;) put
him to it, he is strong enough.
The Spirit of the Lord Jesus be with you.
Your friend.
In his dearest Friend, Christ Jesus. S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER CCXLV.
TO MY LADY BOYD.
My very honorable, and Christian Lady, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. — I received your letter, and am well pleased
that your thoughts of Christ stay Avith you, and that your purpose
still is, by all means, to take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence,
which is no small conquest : — and it is a degree of watchfulness
and thankfulness also, to observe sleepiness and unthankfulness.
We have all good cause to complain of false light, that playeth the
thief, and stealeth away the lantern. When it cometh to the
practice of constant walking with God. our journey is ten times a
day broken into ten pieces, — Clirist getteth but only broken, and
halfed.' and tired work of us, and alas ! too often against the
hair.2 '
I have been somewhat nearer the Bridegroom ; but when I draw
nigh, and see my vileness, for shame I would be out of his pres-
ence again ; but yet, desire of his soul-refreshing love putteth
blushing me under an arrest. Oh, what am I, so loathsome a
burden of sin, to stand beside such a beautiful and holy Lord, such
a high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity ! But since it pleaseth
Christ to condescend to such an one as I, let shamefacedness be
laid aside, and lose itself in condescending love. I would heartily
be content to keep a corner of the King's hall. Oh, if I were at the
yonder end of my weak desires ! then should I be where Christ,
my Lord and Lover, liveth and reigneth ; there I should be ever-
lastingly solaced with the sight of his face, and satisfied with the
surpassing sweetness of his matchless love. But truly now I stand
in the nether side of my desires, and with a drooping head, and
panting heart, I look up to fair Jesus, standing afar off from us, whill *
corruption and death shall scour and refine the body of clay, and
rot out the bones of the Old Man of sin. In tlie mean time we are
blessed in sending word to the Beloved, that we love to love him ;
and till then, there is joy in wooing, suiting,' lying about his house,
looking in at the windows, and sending a poor soul's groans and
wishes through a hole of the door to Jesus, till God send a glad
» Halved. 2 Against the grain. 3 Oh, that
4 Till. ' Urging a suit.
388 Rutherford's letters.
meeting : and blessed be God, that after a low ebb, and so sad a
word, " Lord Jesus, it is long since I saw thee," that even then,
our wings are growing, and the absence of sweet Jesus breedeth a
new fleece of desires and longings for him. I know that no man
hath a velvet cross, but the cross is made of that which God will
have it. But verily, howbeit, it be no warrantable market to buy
a cross,' yet I dare not say, oh, that I had liberty to sell Christ's
cross, lest, therewith, also, I should sell joy, comfort, sense of love,
patience,, and the kind visits of a Bridegroom : and, therefore,
lilessed be God, we get crosses unbought and good-cheap.'' Sure I
am, it were better to buy crosses for Christ, than to sell them :
howbeit neither be allowed to us.
And for Christ's joyful coming and going, which your Ladyship
speaketh of, I bear with it, as love can permit. It should be
enough to me, if I were wise, that Christ will have joy and sor-
row halvers of the life of the saints, and that each of them should
have a share of our days : as the night and the day are kindly
partners and halvers of time, and take it up betwixt them. But
if sorrow be the greedier halver of our days here, I know that
joy's day shall dawn, and do more than recompense all our sad
hours. Let my Lord Jesus, (since he willeth to do so,) weave my
bit and span-length of time with white and black, well and wo,
with the Bridegroom's coming and his sad departure, as warp and
woof in one web ; and let the rose be neighbored with the thorn ;
yet hope that maketh not ashamed hath written a letter and lines
of hope to the mourners in Zion, that it shall not be long so.
When we are over the water, Christ shall cry down crosses, and
up Heaven for evermore ; and down Hell, and down death, and
down sin, and down sorrow ; and up glory, up life, up joy for
evermore. In this hope, I sleep quietly in Christ's bosom whilP
He come who is not slack ; and would sleep so, were it not that
the noise of the Devil, and of sin's feet, and the cries of an unbe-
lieving heart awaken me : — but, for the present, I have nothing
whereof I can accuse Christ's cross. Oh, if ^ I could please my-
self in Christ only.
I hope, madam, that your sons will improve their power for
Jesus : for there is no danger, neither is there any question or
justling betwixt Christ and authority, (though our enemies falsely
state the question,) as if Christ and authority could not abide
under one roof, — the question only is, betwixt Christ and men in
authority. Authority is for and from Christ, and sib^ to him;
how then can he make a plea" with it? Nay. the truth is, worms
and gods of clay are risen up against Christ. If the fruit of your
Ladyship's womb be helpers of Christ, ye have good ground to
rejoice in God.
All that your Ladyship can expect for your good-will to me,
and my brother, (a wronged stranger for Christ,) is the prayers
1 No one is entitled, by any act of his own, to bring a cross or trial, for its own
sake, upon himself. 2 Gratuitously. 3 Till.
* Oh, that. 5 Related by blood, consanguineous. ^ Quarrel
Rutherford's letters. 389
of a prisoner of Jesus, to whom I recommend your Ladyship, and
your House and children : and in whom I am,
Madam, your Ladyship's in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 8, 1637.
LETTER CGXLVL
TO MR. THOMAS GARVEN
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I re-
joice that ye cannot be quit of Christ, (if I may speak so,) but
that he must, he will have you. Betake yourself to Christ, my
dear brother. It is a great business to make quit of superfluities,
and of those things which Christ cannot dwell with. I am con-
tent with my own cross, that Christ hath made mine by an eternal
lot, because it is Christ's and mine together. I marvel not, that
winter is without Heaven ; for there is no winter within it ; all the
saints, therefore, have their own measure of winter, before their
eternal summer. Oh, for the long day, and the high sun, and the
fair garden, and the King's great city up above these visible
Heavens ! What God layeth on let me suffer ; for some have
one cross, some seven, some ten, some half a cross : yet all the
saints have whole and full joy, and seven crosses have seven joys.
Christ is cumbered with me, (to speak so,) and my cross, but he
falleth not off^ me, we are not at variance. I find the very
glooms 2 of Christ's wooing a soul sweet and lovely. I had rather
have Christ's bufTet and love-stroke, than another king's kiss ; —
speak evil of Christ who will, I hope to die w^ith love-thoughts of
him. Oh, that there are so few tongues in Heaven and earth to
extol him ! I wish his praises go not down amongst us. Let
not Christ be low and lightly esteemed in the midst of us : but
let all hearts and all tongues cast in their portion, and contribute
something to make him great in Mount Zion.
Thus recommending you to his grace, and remembering my
love to your wife and mother, and your kind brother R. B., and
entreating you to remember my bonds, I rest,
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 8, 1637.
LETTER CCXLVn.
TO JONET KENNEDY.
Loving and dear Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. — I received your letter. I know that the savor of Christ in
1 Doth not separate himself from me. 2 Frowns.
390 Rutherford's letters.
you, (whom the virgins love to follow,) cannot be blown away
with winds, either from Hell, or the evil-smelled air of this pol-
luted world. Sit far aback from the walls of this pest-house, even
the pollutions of this defiling world. Keep your taste, your love,
and hope in Heaven ; it is not good that your love and your Lord
should be in two sundry' countries. Up, up after your Lover,
that ye and he may be together. A King from Heaven hath sent
for you : by faith he shovveth you the New Jerusalem, and taketh
you alongst in the Spirit, through all the ease-rooms ^ and dwell-
ing-houses in Heaven, and saith, " All these are thine ; this palace
is for thee and Christ ;" and if ye only had been the chosen of
God, Christ would have built that one house for you and himself;
now it is for you and many others also. Take with you in your
journey what ye may carry with you — your conscience, faith,
hope, patience, meekness, goodness, brotherly kindness, for such
wares as these are of great price in the high and new Country
whither ye go. As for other things, Avhich are but the world's
vanity and trash, since they are but the house-sweepings, ye will
do best not to carry them with you. Ye found them here, leave
them here, and let them keep the house.
Your sun is well turned and low ; be nigh your lodging against
night. We go one and one out of this great market, till the
town be empty, and the two-lodgings. Heaven and Hell, be filled.
At length there will be nothing in the earth but toom ^ walls and
burnt ashes, and therefore, it is best to make away. Antichrist
and his Master are busy to plenish ^ Hell, and to seduce many :
and Stars, great Church-lights, are falling from heaven, and
many are misled and seduced, and makeup with^ their faith, and
sell their birth-rights, by their hungry hunting for I know not
what. Fasten your grips ^ fast upon Christ. I verily esteem him
the best aught "^ that I have. He is my Second in prison. Having
him, though my cross were as heavy as ten mountains of iron,
when he putteth his sweet shoulder under me and it, my cross is
but a feather. I please myself in the choice of Christ ; he is my
wale ' in Heaven and earth. I rejoice that he is in Heaven before
me. God send a joyful meeting : and, in the mean time, the
traveller's charges for the way, I mean a burden of Christ's love,
to sweeten the journey, and to encourage a breathless runner; for
when I lose breath, climbing up the mountain, he maketh new
breath.
Now the very God of peace establish you to the day of his
appearance.
Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 9, 1637.
1 Separate. 2 Rooms for repose. 3 Empty.
* To replenish. s Become content with. 8 Hold.
' Possession. 8 Selection.
Rutherford's letters. 391
LETTER CCXLVIII.
TO MARGARET REID.
My very dear, and worthy Sister, — 'Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. — Ye are truly blessed of the Lord, however a
sour world gloom ' upon you, if ye continue in the faith grounded
and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel.
It is good that there is a heaven, and it is not a night-dream or a
fancy. It is a wonder that men deny not that there is a heaven,
as they deny there is a way to it, but of men's making. You
have learned of Christ that there is a heaven ; contend for it, and
contend for Christ; bear well and submissively the hard cross of
this step-mother world, that God will not have to be yours. I con-
fess it is hard, and I would I were able to ease you of your burden :
but believe me that this world, (which the Lord will not have to
be yours,) is but the dross, the refuse, and scum of God's creation,
the portion of the Lord's poor hired servants ; the movables, not
the heritage ; a hard bone casten to the dogs, holden out of the
New Jerusalem, whereupon they rather break their teeth than
satisfy their appetite. It is your Father's blessing, and Christ's
birth-right, that our Lord is keeping for you ; and I persuade you
that your seed, also, shall inherit the earth, (if that be good for
them,) for that is promised to them ; and God's bond is as good,
and better, than if men would give every one of them a bond for
a thousand thousands. Ere ye were born, crosses, in number,
measure, and weight, were written for you, and your Lord will
lead you through them : make Christ sure, and the blessings of
the earth shall be at Christ's back. I see many professors for the
fashion ^ follow on ; but they are professors of glass : I would cause
a little knock of persecution ding ^ them in twenty pieces, and so
the world would laugh at the sherds. Therefore, make fast work.
See that Christ lay the ground-stone^ of your profession ; for wind
and rain, and spaits^ will not wash away his jjuilding ; his works
have no shorter date than to stand for evermore. I should twenty
times have perished in my affliction, if I had not leaned my weak
back, and laid my pressing burden both upon the Stone, the Foun-
dation-stone, the Corner-stone laid in Zion ; and I desire never to
rise olf this stone.
Now, the very God of peace confirm and establish you unto the
day of the blessed appearance of Christ Jesus. God be with you.
Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
1 Frown. ^ For the sake of appearances.
3 To ding — to knock, to drive. ■* Foundation. s Floods, deluges.
392 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCXLIX.
TO JAMES BAUTIE.
Loving Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. — I
received your letter, and render you thanks for the same ; but I
have not time to, answer all the heads of it, as the bearer can in-
form you. First, Ye do well to take yourself at the right stot ' when
ye wrong Christ by doubting and misbelief;^ for this is to nick-
name Christ, and term him a liar, which being spoken to our
Prince, Would be hanging or beheading ; but Christ hangeth not
always for treason. It is well that he may registrate a believer's
bond a hundred times, and more than seven times a day have law
against us, and yet he spareth us as a man doth his son that
serveth him — no tender-hearted mother, who may have law to
kill her sucking child, would put in execution that law. — 2ndly,
For your failings, even when ye have a set tryste ^ with Christ,
and when ye have a fair, seen advantage, by keeping your ap-
pointment with him, and salvation cometh to the very passing of
the seals, I would say two things : — 1. Concluded and sealed sal-
vation may go through and be ended, suppose you write your
name to the tail of the Covenant with ink that can hardly be
read — neither think I ever any man's salvation passed the seals,
but there was an odd trick or slip, in less or more, upon the fool's
part, who is infefted in Heaven. In the most grave and serious
work of our salvation, I think Christ had ever good cause to laugh
at our silliness, and to put on us his merits, that we might bear
weight. 2. It is a sweet law of the New Covenant, and a privi-
lege of the new burgh, that citizens pay according to their means :
for the New Covenant saith not, so much obedience by ounce-
weights, and no less, under the pain of damnation : Christ taketh
as poor men may give ; where there is a mean portion, he is con-
tent with the less, if there be sincerity : broken simis and little,
feckless^ obedience Avill be pardoned, and hold the foot^ with him.
Know ye not that our kindly Lord retaineth his good, old heart
yet ? He breaketh not a braised reed, nor quencheth the smoking
flax ; if the wind but blow, lie holdeth his hand about it till it rise
to a flame. The law cometh on with three oyesses, with all the
heart, with all the soul, and with all the whole strength — and
when would poor folks, like you and me, furnish all these sums ?
It feareth me, (nay, it is most certain,) that if the payment were
to come out of our purse, when we should put our hand into our
bag, we should bring out the wind, or worse : but the covenant
1 Point. Stot means the rebound of a ball from the object against which it has
been thrown. 2 Weak faith.
3 Fixed appointment to meet. * Worthless.
5 That is, be sustained, or allowed to pass.
Rutherford's letters. 393
seeketh not heap-mete,^ nor stented obedience as the condition of
it, because forgiveness hath always place. Hence I draw this
conclusion ; that to think matters betwixt Christ and us go back
for want of heaped measure,' is a piece of old Adam's pride, who
would either be at legal payment or nothing. We would still
have God in our common,'^ and buy his kindness with our merits.
For beggarly pride is devil's honesty, and blusheth to be in Christ's
common, 2 and scarce giveth God a gramercy, and a lifted cap, (ex-
cept it be the Pharisee's unlucky "God, I thank thee,") or a bowed
knee to Christ. It will only give a " Good-day" for a " Good-day"
again ; and if he dissemble his kindness, as it were, in jest, and
seem to misken ^ it, it, in earnest, spurneth with the heels, and
snufleth in the wind, and careth not much for Christ's kindness.
" If he will not be friends, let him go," saith pride. Beware of
this thief, when Christ oifereth himself — 3rdly, No marvel then
of whisperings, Whether you be in the Covenant or not ? for pride
maketh loose work of the Covenant of grace, and will not let
Christ be full bargain-maker. To speak to you particularly and
shortly : — 1. All the truly regenerated cannot determinately tell
you the measure of their dejections ; because Christ beginneth
young with many, and stealeth into their heart, ere they wit of
themselves, and becometh homely * with them, with little din or
noise. I grant that many are blinded, in rejoicing in a good-cheap^
conversion, that never cost them a sick night ; Christ's physic
wrought in a dream upon them ; but for that, I would say. if
other marks be found that Christ is indeed come in, never make
plea with him, because he will not answer, "Lord Jesus, how
camest thou in ? — whether in at door or window ?" Make him
welcome, since he is come. "The wind bloweth where it listeth"
— all the world's wit cannot perfectly render a reason why the
wind should be a month in the east, six weeks, possibly, in the
west, and the space only of an afternoon in the south or north.
Ye will not find out all the nicks ^ and steps of Christ's way with
a soul, do what ye can ; for sometimes he will come in stepping
softly, like one walking beside a sleeping person, and slip-to the
door, and let none know he is there. 2. Ye object. The truly re-
generate should love God for himself; and ye fear that ye love
him more for his benefits, (as incitements and motives to love
him,) than for himself I answer. To love God for himself, as the
last end, and also for his benefits, as incitements and motives to
love him, may stand well together; as a son loveth his mother,
because she is his mother, howbeit she be poor ; and he loveth
her for an apple also. I hope ye will not say, that benefits are
the only reason and bottom of your love ; it seemeth there is a
better foundation for it ; always,'' if a hole be in it, sew it up
' Heaped measure. By the ancient Scottish laws and customs, many kinds of grain,
&c., were required to be heaped in the measure, in order to render the quantity legaJ.
2 Under obligation to. 3 7\, misken, not to know.
■4 Familiar. s Gratuitous. 6 Notches, marks.
7 Although, however, like toutes-fois, in French.
394 Rutherford's letters.
shortly.^ 3. Ye feel not such mourning in Christ's absence as ye
would. I answer, That the regenerate mourn at all times, and
all in like measure for his absence, I deny. There are different
degrees of mourning, less or more, as they have less or more love
to him, and less or more sense of his absence. But, 1. Some they
must have. 2. Sometimes they miss not the Lord, and then they
cannot mourn ; howbeit, it is not long so ; at least, it is not always
so. 3. Ye challenge yourself that some truths find more credit ''
with you than others. Ye do well, for God is true in the least, as
well as in the greatest, and he must be so to you. Ye must not
call him true in the one page of the leaf, and false in the other ;
for our Lord, in all his writings, never contradicted himself yet.
Although the best of the regenerate have slipped here, always
labor ye to hold your feet. — 4thly, Comparing the state of one
truly regenerate, whose heart is a temple of the Holy Ghost, and
yours, which is full of uncleanness and corruption, ye stand dumb
and discouraged, and dare not sometimes call Christ lieartsomely *
your own. I answer, The best regenerate have their defilements,
and, if I may speak so, their draff-poke,^ that will clog behind
them all their days ; and, wash as they will, there will be filth in
their bosom — but let not this put you from the well. 2. I answer,
Albeit there be some ounce-weights of carnalit)^, and some squint
look, or eye in our neck to an idol, yet love in its own measure
may be found ; for glory must purify and perfect our love ; it will
never till then be absolutely pure. Yet, if the idol reign, and have
the whole of the heart, and the keys of the house, and Christ only
be made an underling to run errands, all is not right ; therefore,
examine well. 3. There is a two-fold discouragement ; one of
unbelief, to conclude, and make doubt of the conclusion, for a
mote in your eye, and a by-look * to an idol ; this is ill : there is
another discouragement of sorrow for sin, when ye find a by-look^
to an idol ; this is good, and matter of thanksgiving ; therefore,
examine here also. — Sthly, The assurance of Jesus's love, ye say,
would be the most comfortable news that ever ye heard. Answer,
That may stop twenty holes, and loose many objections. That
love hath telling in it, I trow. Oh, that ye knew and felt it, as I
have done ! I wish you a share of my feast ; sweet, sweet, hath
it been to me. If my Lord had not given me this love, I should
have fallen through the causeway of Aberdeen ere now ! But for
you. hing on,^ your feast is not far off; ye shall be filled ere ye
go ; there is as much in our Lord's pantry as will satisfy all his
bairns, and as much wine in his cellar as will quench all their
thirst. Hunger on, for there is meat in hunger for Christ. Never
go from him, but fash^ him, (who yet is pleased with the impor-
tunity of hungry souls,) with a dish-full of hungry desires, till he
1 Immediately. 2 Cordially.
3 Literally, a sack for carrying draf, that is, the refuse of malt which has been
brewed; metaphorically, moral imperfection, as in the Scottish proverb, " Ilka man
has his ain draff-poke," — every one has his own peculiar failing.
■» A look askance. 6 To hing on, to wait with patience.
6 Trouble, pester, annoy.
Rutherford's letters. 395
fill you ; and if he delay, yet come not ye away, albeit ye should
fall aswoon ' at his feet.— 6thly, Ye crave my mind, whether
sound comfort may be found in prayer, when conviction of a
known idol is present. I answer, An idol, as an idol, cannot stand
with sound comforts ; for that comfort that is gotten at Dagon's
feet is a cheat or blaflum ; ^ yet sound comfort, and conviction of
an eye to an idol, may as well dwell together as tears and joy.
But let this do you no ill ; I speak it for your encouragement, that
ye may make the best out of your joys ye can, albeit you find them
mixed with motes. 2. Conviction, if alone, without remorse
and grief, is not enough ; therefore, lend it a tear if ye dow win
at^ it. — Tthly, Ye question, when ye win^ to more fervency some-
times with your neighbor in prayer, than when you are alone,
whether hypocrisy be in it or not ? I answer. If this be always,
no question a spice of hypocrisy is in it, which should be taken
heed to ; but possibly desertion may be in private, and presence
in public, and then the case is clear. — Sthly, A fit of applause
may occasion, by accident, a rubbing of a cold heart, and so heat
and life may come ; but it is not the proper cause of that heat ;
hence God, of his free grace, will ride his errands upon our stinking
corruption ; but corruption is but a mere occasion and accident,
as the playing on a pipe removed anger from the prophet, and,
made him fitter to prophesy, (2 Kings iii. 15.) — Othly, Ye com-
plain of Christ's short visits, tbat he will not bear you company
one night ; but when ye lye down warm at night, ye rise cold at
morning. Answer, I cannot blame you, (nor any other, that
knoweth that sweet Guest,) to bemoan his withdrawings, and to
be most desirous of his abode and company ; for he would capti-
vate and engage the affection of any creatine that saw his face.
Since he looked on me, and gave me a sight of his fair love, he
gained my heart wholly, and got away with it ; well, well may
he brook^ it; he shall keep it long, ere I fetch it from him. But
I shall tell you what ye should do. Treat him well, give him the
chair and the board-head,« and make him welcome to the mean
portion ye have ; a good supper and kind entertainment maketh
the guests love the inn the better. Yet sometimes Christ hath an
errand elsewhere, for mere trial ; and then, though ye give him
king's cheer, he will away ; as is clear in desertions for mere trial,
and not for sin. — lOthly, Ye seek the difference betwixt the mo-
tions of the Spirit, in their least measure, and the natural joys of
your own heart. Answer, As a man can tell, if he joy and de-
light in his wife, as his wife ; or if he delight and joy in her for
satisfaction of his lust, but hating her person, and so loving her
for her flesh, and not grieving when ill befalletli her ; so will a
man's joy in God, and his whorish natural joy, be discovered ; if
he sorry for anything that may offend the Lord, it will speak the
singleness of his love to him. — llthly, Ye ask the reason why
I Into a swoon. ^ An illusion.
3 That is, are able to attain to. * Attain.
5 To brook, to enjoy. * Head of the table.
396 Rutherford's letters.
sense overcometh faith. Answer, Because sense is more natural,
and near of kin to our selfish and soft nature. Ye ask, If faith,
in that case, be sound ? Answer, If it be chased away, it is neither
sound nor unsound, because it is not faith ; but it might be, and
Avas faith, before sense did blow out the act of believing. — Lastly,
Ye ask what to do, when promises are borne-in ' upon you, and
sense of impenitency, for sins of youth, hindereth application. I
answer. If it be living sense, it may stand with application ; and
in this case, put to your hand,^ and eat your meat in God's name :
if false, so that the sins of youth are not repented of, then, as faith
and impenitency cannot stand together, so neither that sense and
application can consist.
Brother, excuse my brevity, for time straiteneth me, that I get
not my mind said in these things, but must refer that to a new
occasion, if God offer it. Brother, pray for me. Grace be with
you.
Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCL.
TO JOHN STUART, PROVOST OP AYR, NOW IN IRELAND.
Much honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.
— I long to hear from you, being now removed from my flock, and
the prisoner of Christ at Aberdeen. I would not have you to think
it strange, that your journey to New England hath gotten such a
dash : it indeed hath made my heart heavy ; yet I know it is no
dumb providence, but a speaking one, whereby our Lord speaketh
his mind to you, though for the present ye do not well understand
what he saith : however it be, he who sitteth upon the floods, hath
shown you his marvellous kindness in the great depths. I know
that your loss is great, and your hope gone against you ; but I
entreat you, sir, expound aright our Lord's laying all hindrances
in the way. I persuade myself that your heart aimeth at the foot-
steps of the flock, to feed beside the shepherd's tents, and to dwell
beside Him whom your soul loveth ; and that it is your degire to
remain in the wilderness, where the Woman is kept from the
Dragon : and this being your desire, remember that a poor prisoner
of Christ said it to you, that that miscarried journey is with child
to you of mercy and consolation, and shall bring forth a fair birth,
on which the Lord will attend in his own way. Wait on; "He
that believeth maketh not haste," (Isaiah xxviii. 16.)
I hope that ye have been asking what the Lord meaneth, and
what further may be his will, in reference to your return. My
dear brother, let God make of you what he will, he will end all
with consolation, and will make glory out of your sufferings ; — and
1 Impressed upon the mind. 2 That is, stretch out your hand to the food.
Rutherford's letters. 397
would yon wish better work? This water was in your way to
Heaven, and written in your Lord's book ; ye behooved to cross it,
and, therefore, kiss his wise and unerring providence. Let not
the censures of men, who see but the outside of things, and scarce
well that, abate your courage and rejoicing in the Lord ; howbeit
your faith seeth but the black side of providence, yet it hath a
better side, and God will let you see it. Learn to believe Christ
better than his strokes, himself and his promises better than his
glooms :^ dashes and disappointments are not canonical scripture ;
fighting for the promised land, seemed to cry to God's promise,
" Thou liest." If our Lord ride upon a straw, his horse shall
neither stumble nor fall, (Rom. viii. 28,) "For we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God ;" ergo^ ship-
wreck, losses, (fcc. work together for the good of them that love
God. Hence I infer, that losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss
of friends, houses, or country are God's workmen, set on work to
work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you. Let
not the Lord's dealing seem harsh, rough, or unfatherly, because
it is unpleasant. When the Lord's blessed will bloweth across
your desires, it is best in humility, to strike sail to him, and to be
willing to be led any way our Lord pleaseth. It is a point of de-
nial of yourself, to be as if ye had not a will, but had made a free
disposal of it to God, and had sold it over to him ; and to make
use of his will for your own, is both true hohness, and your ease
and peace : ye know not what the Lord is working out of this, but
ye sball know it hereafter.
And what I write to you, I write to your wife. I compassionate
her case, but entreat her not to fear nor faint. This journey is a
part of her wilderness to Heaven and the Promised Land, and
there are fewer miles behind ; it is nearer the dawning of the day
to her than when she went out of Scotland. I should be glad to
hear that ye and she have comfort and courage in the Lord.
Now, as concerning our Kirk, our Service-book ^ is ordained, by
open proclamation and sound of trumpet to be read in all the
kirks of this kingdom. Our prelates are to meet this month for it
and our Canons, and for a reconciliation betwixt us and the
Lutherans. The Professors of Aberdeen University are charged
to draw up the articles of an Uniform Confession ; but reconcilia-
tion with Popery is intended. This is the day of Jacob's visita-
tion ; the ways of Zion mourn, our gold is become dim, the sun is
gone down upon our prophets. A dry wind, but neither to fan
nor to cleanse, is coming upon this land, and all our ill is coming
from the multiplied transgressions of this land, and from the friends
and lovers of Babel among us, — (Jer. li. 35,) " The violence done to
me, and to my flesh be upon thee, Babylon, shall the inhabitants
of Zion say ; and, my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,
shall Jerusalem say."
Now for myself; I was three days before the High Commission,
and accused of treason preached against our King. A minister
I Frowns. ' Book of Common Prayer.
398 Rutherford's letters.
being witness, went well nigh to swear it. God hath saved me
from their malice. 1st, They have deprived me of my ministry ;
2dly, Silenced me, that I exorcise no part of the ministerial func-
tion within this kingdom, under the pain of rebellion ; 3dly, Con-
fined my person within the town of Aberdeen, where I find the
ministers working for my confinement in Caithness or Orkney,
far from them, because some people here, (willing to be edified,)
resort to me. At my first entry, I had heavy challenges' within
me, and a court fenced ^ (but I hope not in Christ's name,)
wherein it was asserted, that my Lord would have no more of my
service, and was tired of me : and, like a fool, I summoned Christ
also for unkindness ; my soul fainted, and I refused comfort, and
said, " What ailed Christ at me ? for I desired to be faithful in his
house." Thus in my rovings and mistakings, my Lord .Tesus be-
stowed mercy on me, who am less than the least of all saints. I
lay upon the dust, and bought a plea from Satan ^ against Christ,
and he was content to sell it. But at length Christ did show him-
self friends with me, and in mercy pardoned and passed my part
of it, and only complained that a court should be holden in his
bounds, without his own allowance. Now I pass from my com-
pearance ;^ and, as if Christ had done the fault, he hath made the
mendss and returned to my soul; so that now his poor prisoner
feedeth on the feasts of love. My adversaries know not what a
courtier I am now with my Royal King, for whose crown I now
suffer. It is but our soft and lazy flesh that hath raised an ill re-
port of the cross of Christ. Oh. sweet, sweet is his yoke ! Christ's
chains are of pure gold ; sufferings for him are perfumed ; I would
not give my weeping for the laughing of all the Fourteen Pre-
lates ; I would not exchange my sadness with the world's joy. O
lovely, lovely Jesus, how sweet must thy kisses be, when thy cross
smelleth so sweetly ! Oli, if ^ all the Three Kingdoms had part of
my love-feast, and of the comfort of a dawted '' prisoner !
Dear brother, I charge you to praise for me, and to seek help
of our acquaintance there, to help me to praise. Why should I
smother Christ's honesty to me ! My heart is taken up with this,
that my silence and sufferings may preach. I beseech you in the
bowels of Christ, to help me to praise. Remember my love to
your wife, to Mr. Blair, and Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Cunning-
ham. Let me hear from you, for I am anxious what to do : if I
saw a call for New England, I would follow it. Grace be with you.
Yours in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37,
* Self-accusations. 2 Constituted.
3 That is, hired Satan, by my own repining, to give me some cause or ground of
controversy with Christ.
* Appearance in obedience to legal citation. s Made amends.
* That. 7 Much made of.
Rutherford's letters. 399
LETTER CCLI.
TO JOHN STUART, PROVOST OF AYR.
Much honored, and dearest in Christ, — Grace, mercy,
and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
be upon you.
I expected the comfort of a letter to a prisoner from you, ere
now. I am here, sir, putting off a part of my inch of time ; and
when I awake first in the morning, (which is always with great
heaviness and sadness), this question is brought to my mind —
" Am I serving God or not ?" Not that I doubt of the truth of this
honorable cause wherein I am engaged — I dare venture into eter-
nity, and before my Judge, that I now suffer for the truth ; be-
cause that I cannot endure that my Master, who is a freeborn
King, should pay tribute to any of the shields or potsherds of the
earth : oh, that I could hold the crown upon my princely King's
head with my sinful arm, howbeit it should be struck from me, in
that service, from the shoulder-blade, — but my closed mouth, my
dumb Sabbaths, the memory of my communion with Christ, in
many fair, fair days in Anwoth, (whereas now my Master getteth
no service of my tongue as then.) hath almost broken my faith in
two halves : yet in my deepest apprehensions of his 'anger, I see
through a cloud that I am wrong ; and he, in love to my soul, hath
taken up the controversy betwixt faith and apprehensions, and a
decreet' is passed on Christ's side of it, and I subscribe the de-
creet.' The Lord is equal in his ways, but my guiltiness often
overmastereth my believing. I have not been well known : for
except as to open outbreakings, I want nothing of what Judas and
Cain had ; only he hath been pleased to prevent me in mercy, and
to cast me into a fever of love for himself, and his absence maketh
my fever most painful ; and beside he hath visited my soul and
watered it with his comforts : — but yet I have not what I would ;
the want of real and felt possession is my only death. I know
that Christ pitieth me in this.
The great men, my friends, that did ^ for me, are dried up, like
winter-brooks of water. All say, " No dealing for that man ; his
best will be, to be gone out of the kingdom." So I see they tire
of me : but, believe me, I am most gladly content that Christ
breaketh all my idols in pieces : it hath put a new edge upon my
blunted love to Christ ; I see that he is jealous of my love, and
will have all to himself. In a word, these six things are my bur-
den : 1. I am not in the vineyard as others are, it may be, because
Christ thinketh me a withered tree, not worth its room — but God
forbid ! 2. Wo, wo, wo is coming upon my Harlot-mother, this
apostate Kirk ! The time is coming when we shall wish for
doves' wings, to flee and hide us. Oh. for the desolation of this
1 Sentence of a court, 8 Acted.
400 Rutherford's letters.
land ! 3. 1 see my clear Master, Christ, going his lone,^ (as it
were,) mourning in sackcloth. His fainting friends fear that King
Jesus shall lose the field : but he must carry the day. 4. My
guiltiness and the sins of youth are come up against me, and they
would come into the plea in my sufferings, as deserving causes in
God's justice ; but I pray God, for Christ's sake, that he may never
give them that room. Wo is me, that I cannot get my royal,
dreadful, mighty, and glorious Prince of the kings of the earth set
on high. Sir, ye may help me and pity me in this, and bow your
knee, and bless his name, and desire others to do it, that he hath
been pleased in my sufferings to make Atheists, Papists, and ene-
mies about me, say, "It is like that God is with this prisoner."
Let Hell and the powers of Hell, (I care not,) be let loose against
me to do their worst, so being that Christ, and my Father and his
Father be magnified in my sufferings. 5. Christ's love hath
pained me ; for howbeit his presence hath shamed me, and
drowned me in debt, yet he often goeth away when my love to
him is burning. He seemeth to look like a proud wooer, who
will not look upon a poor match, that is dying of love. I will not
say he is lordly : but I know he is wise in hiding himself from a
child and a fool, who maketh an idol and a god of one of Christ's
kisses, which is idolatry. I fear that I adore his comforts more
than himself, and that I love the apples of life better than the
Tree of life.
Sir, write to me. Commend me to your wife. Mercy be her
portion. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLH.
TO JOHN STUART, PROVOST OP AYR.
Worthy, and dearly beloved in our Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. — I was refreshed and comforted with
your letter. What I wrote to you, for your comfort, I do not re-
member ; but I believe, that love will prophesy homeward, as it
would have it. I wish that I could help you to praise His great
and holy name who keepeth the feet of his saints, and hath num-
bered all your goings. I know that our dearest Lord will pardon
and pass by our honest errors and mistakes, when we mind his
honor : yet I know that none of you have seen the other ha^" and
the hidden side of your wonderful return home to us again. 1 am
confident ye shall yet say, that God's mercy blew your sails back
to Ireland again.
Worthy, and dear sir, I cannot but give you an account of my
present estate, that ye may go an errand for me to my high and
royal Master, of whom I boast all the day. I am as proud of his
1 By himself alone.
Rutherford's letters. 401
love, (nay, I bless myself, and boast more of my present lot,) as
any poor man can be of an earthly king's court, or of a kingdom.
First, I am very often turning both the sides of ni}?^ cross, especially
my dumb and silent Sabbaths ; not because I desire to find a cross
or defect in my Lord's love, but because my love is sick with fan-
cies and fear. Whether or not the Lord hath a process leading
against my guiltiness, that I have not yet well seen, I know not.
My desire is to ride fair, and not to spark dirt,' (if, with reverence
to him, I may be permitted to make use of such a word,) in the
face of my only Well-beloved ; but fear of guiltiness is a tale-
bearer betwixt me and Christ, and is still whispering ill tales of
my Lord, to weaken my faith. I had rather that a cloud went
over my comforts by these messages, than that my faith should be
hurt : for, if my Lord get no wrong by me, verily I desire grace,
not to care what become of me. I desire to give no faith, nor
credit to my sorrow, that can make a lie of my best friend Christ.
Wo, wo be to them all ! who speak ill of Christ. Hence these
thouglits awake with me in the morning, and go to bed with me.
Oh, what service can a dumb body do in Christ's house ! Oh, I
thmk the word of God is imprisoned also ! Oh, I am a dry tree !
Alas, I can neither plant nor water ! Oh, if '^ my Lord would make
but dung of me, to fatten and make fertile his own corn-ridges in
mount Zion ! Oh, if I might but speak to three or four herd-boys ^
of my worthy Master, I would be satisfied to be the meanest and
most obscure of all the pastors in this land, and to live in any
place, in any of Christ's basest outhouses ! but he saith, " Sirrah,
1 will not send j^ou, I have no errands for you thereaway."^ My
desire to serve him is sick of jealousy, lest he be unwilling to em-
ploy me. Secondly, This is seconded by another ; Oh ! all that I
have done in Anwoth, the fair work that my Master began there,
is like a bird dying in the shell : and what will I then have to
show of all my labor, in the day of my compearance ^ before him,
when the Master of the vineyard calleth the laborers, and giveth
them their hire? Thirdly, But truly, when Christ's sweet wind
is in the right airth,* I repent, and I pray Christ to take law-
burrows ^ of my quarrelous unbelieving sadness and sorrow ; — Lord,
rebuke them that put ill betwixt a poor servant like me and his
good Master : — then I say, whether the black cross will or not, I
must climb on hands and feet up to my Lord. I am now ruing
from my heart, that I pleasured the liaw, (my old dead husband,)
so far as to apprehend wrath in my sweet Lord Jesus. I had
far rather take a hire to plead for the grace of God, for I think
m3"self Christ's sworn debtor : and the truth is, to speak of my
Lord, what I cannot deny, I am over head and ears, drowned in
many obligations to his love and mercy — he handleth me some-
1 To cause dirt to rise at the horse's heels. 2 oh, that.
3 Boys who tend cattle in the fields. •' In those parts.
5 Appearance. 6 Point of the compass.
''' Legal security, which a man is obliged to give to the person who swears the peace
against him. that he will not injure that individual, in person or property.
26
402 Rutherford's letters.
times so, that I am ashamed almost to seek more for a four-hours/
but to live content, till the marriage-supper of the Lamb, with
that which he giveth. But I know not how greedy and how ill
to please love is ; for either my Lord Jesus hath taught me ill
manners, not to be content with a seat, except my head lie in his
bosom, and except I be fed with the fatness of his house ; or else
I am grown impatiently dainty, and ill^^ to please, as if Christ
were obliged, under this cross, to do no other thing but bear me
in his arms, and as if I had claim by his merit for my suffering
for him. But I wish he would give me grace to learn to go on
my own feet, and to learn to do without his comforts, and to give
thanks and believe, when the sun is not in my firmament, and
when my Well-beloved is from home, and gone another errand.
Oh, what sweet peace have I, when I find that Christ holdeth and
I draw, — when I climb up and he shuteth ^ me down, — ^when I
embrace him and he seemeth to loose the grips ^ and flee away
from me ! I think there is even a sweet joy of faith, and contented-
ness, and peace, in his very tempting unkindness, because my
faith saith, "Christ is not in sad earnest^ with me, but trying if
I can be kind to his mask and cloud that covereth him, as well as
to his fair face." I bless his great name that I love his veil which
goeth over his face, whill God send better : for faith can kiss God's
tempting reproaches when he nicknameth a sinner, " A dog, not
worthy to eat bread with the bairns." ^ I think it an honor that
Christ miscalleth '' me, and reproacheth me ; I will take that well
of him, howbeit I would not bear it well if another should be that
homely ; ^ but because I am his own, (God be thanked,) he may
use me as he pleaseth. I must say, the saints have a sweet life
between them and Christ. There is much sweet solace of love
between him and them, when he feedeth among the lilies, and
Cometh into his garden, and maketh a feast of honeycombs, and
drinketh his wine and his milk, and crieth, " Eat, O Friends ;
drink, yea, drink abundantly, O Well-beloved." One hour of this
labor is worth a shipful of the world's drunken and muddy joy:
nay, even the gate ^ of Heaven is the sunny side of the brae,^" and
the very garden of the world ; for the men of this world have their
own unchristened and profane crosses ; and wo be to them and
their cursed crosses both ; for their ills are salted with God's ven-
geance, and our ills seasoned with our Father's blessing : so that
they are no fools who choose Christ, and sell all things for him ;
it is no bairns' market, nor a blind block ; '' we know well what
we get, and what we give.
Now, for any resolution to go to any other kingdom, I dare not
speak one word : my hopes of enlargement are cold, my hopes of
re-entry to my Master's ill-dressed vineyard again are far colder :
* Slight afternoon's repast. 2 Difficult. 3 shoveth, pusheth.
< Hold. 5 Sober earnest. 6 Children, Mark vii. 27,28.
'' Calleth me names. 8 So familiar. 9 Way.
1" Slope, declivity. Sunny side of the brae, the most warm, sheltered, and comfort-
able situation. i> Bargain.
Rutherford's letters. 403
I have no seat for my faith to sit on, but bare omnipotency, and
God's holy arm and good- will ; here I desire to stay, and ride at
anchor, and winter, whill God send fair weather again, and be
pleased to take home to his house my Harlot-Mother. Oh, if her
Husband would be that ^ kind, as to go and fetch her out of the
brothel-house, and chase her lovers to the hills ! — but there will be
sad days ere it come to that. Remember my bonds. Grace be
with you.
Yours, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLm.
TO THE LADY BUSBIE,
Mistress, — Although not acquaint,^ yet because we are Fa-
ther's children, I thought good to write unto you. Howbeit my
first discourse and communing with you of Christ be on paper ;
yet I have cause, since I came hither, to have no paper-thoughts^
of him ; for in my sad days he has become the flower of my joys,
and I but lie here living upon his love ; but cannot get so much
of it as I fain would have; not because Christ's love is lordly, and
looketh too high, but because I have a narrow vessel to receive
his love, and I look too low. But I give under my own hand-
write^ to you a testimonial^ of Christ and his cross, that they are
a sweet couple, and that Christ hath never yet been set in his
due chair of honor amongst us all. Oh, I know not where to set
him ! Oh ! for a high seat to that royal, princely One ! Oh, that
my poor withered soul had once a running-over flood of that love,
to put sap into my dry root, and, that that flood would spring out
to the tongue, and the pen, to utter great things to the high and
due commendation of such a fair One ! Oh, holy, holy, holy One !
Alas ! there are too many dumb tongues in the world, and dry
hearts, seeing there is employment in Christ for them all, and ten
thousand worlds of men and angels moe, to set on high and exalt
the greatest Prince of the kings of the earth.
Wo is me, that bits of hving clay dare come out, to rush hard-
heads with him ; and that my unkind Mother, this Harlot-kirk,
hath given her sweet half-marrow* such a meeting; for this land
hath given up with Christ, and the Lord is cutting Scotland in
two halves, and sending the worst half, the harlot-sister, over to
Rome's brothel-house, to get her fill of Egypt's love. I would my
sufferings (nay, suppose I were burnt quick to ashes,) might buy
an agreement betwixt his fairest and sweetest love, and his gawdy,
lewd wife ; fain would I give Christ his welcome-home to Scotland
again, if he would return. This is a black day, a day of clouds
» So. 2 Acquainted. 3 Slight thoughts.
* Subscription. ^ A certificate of character. ' Married partner.
404 Rutherford's letters.
and darkness ; for the roof-tree ' of the fair temple of my Lord
Jesus hath fallen, and Christ's back is toward Scotland. Oh,
thrice blessed are they who could hold Christ with their tears and
prayers ! I know that ye will help to deal w^ith him, for he w^ill
return again to this land. The next day shall be Christ's, and
there will be a fair, green, young garden for Christ in this land,
and God's summer-dew shall lye on it all the night, and we will
sing again our new marriage-song to our Bridegroom, concerning
his vineyard ; — but who knoweth whether we shall live and see it?
I hear that the Lord is taking pains to afflict and dress you, as
a fruitful vine, for himself Grow and be green, and cast out your
branches, and bring forth fruit ; fat, and green, and fruitful may
ye be, in the true and sappy root ! Grace, grace, free grace be
your portion ! Remember my bonds, with prayers and praises.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637: ,
LETTER CCLIV.
TO NINIAN MURE.
Loving Friend, — I received your letter. I entreat you now,
in the morning of your life, to seek the Lord and his face. Be-
ware of the folly of dangerous youth — a perilous time for your soul.
Love not the world. Keep faith and truth with all men, in your
covenants and bargains. Walk with God, for he seeth you. Do
nothing but that which ye may and would do, if your eye-strings
were breaking, and your breath growing cold. Ye heard the truth
of God from me, my dear Heart ; follow it, and forsake it not.
Prize Christ and salvation above all the world. To live after the
guise and course of the rest of the world, will not bring you to
Heaven ; without faith in Christ, and repentance, ye cannot see
God. Take pains for salvation ; press forward toward the mark,
for the prize of the high calling : if ye watch not against evils
night and day, which beset you, ye will come behind.^ Beware
of lying, swearing, uncleanness, and the rest of the works of the
flesh ; because, " For these things the wrath of God cometh upon
the children of disobedience." How sweet soever they may seem
for the present, yet the end of these courses is the eternal wrath
of God, and utter darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing
of teeth. Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
1 The beam running along the roof, against which the rafters incline.
2 Fall short.
Rutherford's letters. 405
LETTER CCLV.
TO MR. THOMAS GARVEN.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. — I am sorry that what joy and sorrow drew from my
imprisoned pen, in my love-fits, hath made you and many of God's
children beUeve, that there is something in a broken reed the hke
of me : except that Christ's grace hath bought such a sold body,
I know not what else any may think of me, or expect from me.
My stock is less, (my Lord knoweth that I speak truth,) than
many believe. My empty sounds have promised too much. I should
be glad to lie under Christ's feet, and kep ^ and receive the off-
fallings, or any old pieces of any grace, that fall from his sweet
fingers to forlorn sinners. I lie often, unco-like,^ looking in at the
King's windows. Surely, I am unworthy of a seat in the King's
hall-floor : I but often look afar off, both feared and freinmed-like,^
to that fairest face, fearing He bid me look away from him. My
guiltiness riseth up upon me, and I have no answer for it. I
offered my tongue to Christ, and my pains in his house ; and what
know I what it meaneth, when Christ will not receive my poor
propine?^ When love will not take, we expone^ that it will
neither take nor give, borrow nor lend. Yet Christ hath another
sea-compass which he saileth by, than my short and raw thoughts
— I leave his part of it to himself I dare not expound his deal-
ing, as sorrow and misbeliefs often dictate to me : I look often
with bleared and blind eyes to my Lord's cross ; and when I look
to the wrong side of his cross, I know that I miss a step, and slide.
Surely, I see that I have not legs of my own for carrying me to
Heaven; I must go in at Heaven's gates, borro\ving strength from
Christ.
I am often thinking, oh, if he would but give me leave to love
him, and if Christ would but open up his wares, and the infinite
plies, and windings, and corners of his soul-delighting love ; and
let me see it, backside and foreside ; and give me leave but to
stand beside it, hke a hungry man beside meat, to get my fill of
wondering, as a preface to my fill of enjoying ! But verily, I think
that my foul eyes would defile his fair love to look to it. Either
my hunger is over humble, (if that may be said,) or else I consider
not what honor it is to get leave to love Christ. Oh, that he
would pity a prisoner, and let out a flood upon the dry ground !
It is nothing to him to fill the like of me ; one of his looks would
do me meikle world's good,'' and him no ill. I know that I anj
not at a point yet with Christ's love. I am not yet fitted for so
much as I would have of it. My hope sitteth neighbor with
1 To intercept. ^ Seemingly strange.
3 Having the appearance or guise of a stranger, of one in nowise related by blood.
* Present. 5 Expound.
6 Weak faith. ' More good than all the world.
406 Rutherford's letters.
meikle black hunger : ^ and certainly, I dow not, ^ but think, that
there is more of than love ordained for me than I yet comprehend,
and that I know not the weight of the pension which the King
will give me. I shall be glad if my hungry bill get leave to lie
beside Christ, waiting on an answer. Now I should be full and
rejoice, if I got a poor man's alms of that sweetest love : but I con-
fidently believe, that there is a bed made for Christ and me, and
that we shall take our fill of love in it ; and I often think, when
my joy is run out, and at the lowest ebb, that I would seek no
more than my rights^ passed the King's great seal, and that these
eyes of mine could see Christ's hand at the pen.
If your Lord call you to suffering, be not dismayed : there shall
be a new allowance of the King for you when ye come to it. One
of the softest pillows Christ hath, is laid under his witnesses' head,
though often they must set down their bare feet among thorns.
He hath brought my poor soul to desire and wish, oh, that my
ashes, and the powder I shall be dissolved into, had well-tuned
tongues to praise him.
Thus in haste, desiring your prayers and praises, I recommend
you to my sweet, sweet Master, my honorable Lord, of whom I
hold all. Grace be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLVL
TO THE EARL OF CASSILLIS.
My very HONORABLE, AND NOBLE LoRD, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to your Lordship. — Pardon me to express my earnest de-
sire to your Lordship for Zion's sake, for whom we should not hold
our peace ; — I that know your Lordship will take my pleading, on
this behalf, in the better part, because the necessity of a falling
and weak Church is urgent ; — I that believe your Lordship is one
of Zion's friends, and that by obligation ; for when the Lord shall
count and write up the people, it shall be written, " This man was
born there :" therefore, because your Lordship is a born son of the
House, I hope your desire is, that the beauty and glory of the
Lord may dwell in the midst of the city, whereof your Lordship
is a son. It must be, without all doubt, the greatest honor of
your place and House, to kiss the Son of God, and for his sake to
be kind to his oppressed and wronged bride, who, now in the day
of her desolation, beggeth help of you, that are the shields of the
earth. I am sure that many kings, princes, and nobles, in the
day of Christ's second coming, would be glad to run errands for
Christ, even barefooted, through fire and water ; but in that day
he will have none of their service. Now he is asking, if your
Lordship will help him against the mighty of the earth, when
1 Much utter hunger. 2 Am not able. 3 Charters, title-deeds.
Rutherford's letters. 407
men are setting their shoulders to Christ's fair and beautiful Tent
in this land, to loosen its stakes, and break it down ; and certainly
such as are not with Christ, are against him ; and blessed shall
your Lordsiiip be of the Lord, blessed shall your house and seed
be, and blessed shall your honor be, if ye einpawned and laid in
Christ's hand the Earldom of Cassilhs, (and it is but a shadow in
comparison of the City made without hands,) and laid it even at
the stake, rather than Christ and borne-down truth have not a
witness of you against the apostasy of this land. Ye hold your
lands of Christ, your charters are under his seal, and He who hath
many crowns on his head, dealeth, cutteth, and carveth pieces of
this clay-heritage to men, at his pleasure. It is little that your
Lordship hath to give him. He will not sleep long in your com-
mon,' but shall surely pay home your losses for his cause. It is
but our bleared eyes that look through a false glass to this idol-
god of clay, and think something of it. They who are passed
with their last sentence to Heaven or Hell, and have made their
reckoning, and departed out of this smoky inn, have now no other
conceit of this world, but as a piece of beguiling well-lustred clay.
- — And how fast doth time, (like a flood in motion,) carry your
Ijordship out of it ! and is not eternity coming with wings 7 Court
goeth not in Heaven as it doeth here. Our Lord, (who hath all
you, the nobles, lying in the shell ^ of his balance,) esteemeth you
accordingly as ye are the Bridegroom's friends or foes. Your
honorable ancestors, with the hazard of their lives, brought Christ
to our hands ; and it will be cruelty to the posterity, if ye lose him
to them. One of our tribes, Levi's sons, the watchmen, are fallen
from the Lord, and have sold their Mother, and their Father also,
and the Lord's truth, for their new velvet-world, and their satin
church. If ye, the nobles, play Christ a slip, now when his back
is at the wall,^ (if I may so speak,) then may we say, that the
Lord hath casten water upon Scotland's smoking coal. But we
hope better things of you. It is not wisdom, however it be the
state-wisdom now in request, to be silent, when they are casting
lots for a better thing than Christ's coat. All this land, and every
man's part of the play for Christ, and tears of poor and friendless
Zion, (now going dool-like^ in sackcloth,) are up in Heaven
before our Lord ; and there is no question, but our King and Lord
shall be master of the fields at length. We would all be glad to
divide the spoil with Christ, and to ride in triumph with him ; but
oh, how few will take a cold bed of straw in the camp with him !
how fain would men have a well-thatched house above their heads,
all the way to Heaven ! and many now, would go to Heaven the
land way, (for they love not to be sea-sick,) riding up to Christ
upon foot-mantles, and rattling coaches, and rubbing their velvet
with the princes of the land in the highest seats : — If this be the
way that Christ called strait and narrow, I quit all skill of the
I Under obligation to you. 2 Scale.
3 One's hack is said to be at the wall when one is in a depressed and unfortunate
condition. * In mourning guise.
408 Rutherford's letters.
way to salvation. Are they not now louping' Christ and the
Gospel? Have tliey not put our Lord Jesus to the market, and
he who out-biddeth his fellow shall get him?
O my dear, and noble Lord, go on, (howbeit the wind be in
your face,) to back our princely Captain. Be courageous for him.
Fear not those who have no subscribed lease of days. The
worms shall eat kings. Let the Lord Jehovah be your fear ; and
then, as the Lord liveth, the victory is yours. It is true tiiat many
are striking up a new way to Heaven ; but, my soul for theirs if
ihey find it, and if this be not the only way, whose end is Christ's
Father's house ; and my weak experience, since the day I was
first in bonds, hath confirmed me in the truth and assurance of
this. Let doctors and learned men cry the contrary, I am per-
suaded that this is the way. The bottom hath fallen out of both
their wisdom and conscience at once ; their book hath beguiled
them, for we have fallen upon the true Christ. I dare hazard, if
I alone had ten souls, my salvation upon this Stone, that many
now break their bones upon. Let them take this fat world. — Oh,
poor and hungry is their paradise ! Therefore let me entreat your
Lordship, by your compearance ^ before Christ, now while this
piece of the afternoon of your day is before you, (for ye know not
when your sun will turn, and eternity shall benight you,) let your
worldly glory, honor, and might be for our Lord Jesus. And to
his rich grace and tender mercy, and to the never-dying comforts
of his gracious Spirit, I recommend your Lordship and your noble
House.
Your Lordship's, at all obediencej S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 9, 1637.
LETTER CCLVH.
TO THE LADY LARGIRIE
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I hope ye
know what conditions passed betwixt Christ and you, at your first
meeting. Ye remember that he said, your summer days would
have clouds, and your rose a prickly thorn beside it. Christ is un-
mixed in Heaven, all sweetness and honey. Here we have him
with his thorny and rough cross : yet I know no tree that beareth
sweeter fruit than Christ's cross, except I would raise a lying re-
port on it. It is your part to take Christ, as he is to be had in
this life. Suiferings are like a wood planted round about his
house, over door and window. If we could hold fast our grips ^ of
him, the field were won. Yet a little while, and Christ shall tri-
umph. Give Christ his own short time, to spin out these two
long threads of Heaven and Hell to all mankind — for certainly
the thread will not break — and when he hath accomplished his
work in Mount Zion, and hath refined his silver, he will bring new
' Auctioning. 2 Appearance. 3 Gripe, hold.
Rutherford's letters. 409
yessels out of the furnace, and plenish * his house, and take up his
house ^ again.
I counsel you to free yourself of clogging temptations, by over-
coming some, and contemning others, and watching over all.
Abide true and loyal to Christ, for few now are fast to him. They
give Christ blank paper, for a bond of service and attendance, now
when Christ hath most ado. To waste a little blood with Christ,
and to put our part of this drossy world in pawn over in his hand,
as willing to quit it for him, is the safest cabinet to keep the world
in. But those who would take the world and all their flitting ^
on their back, and run away from Christ, shall fall by the way,
and leave their burden behind them, and be taken captives them-
selves. Well were my sold, to have put all 1 have, life and soul,
over into Christ's hands. Let him be forthcoming ^ for all.
If any ask how I do ? I answer, None can be but well that are
in Christ : and if I were not so, ray sufferings had melted me away
in ashes and smoke. — I thank my Lord, that he hath something
in me that this fire cannot consume.
Remember my love to your husband ; and show him from me,
that I desire that he may set aside all things, and make sure work
of salvation, that it be not a-seeking, when the sand-glass is run
out, and time and eternity shall tryste * together. There is no
errand so weighty as this. Oh, that he would take it to heart.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord. S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLVIIL
TO THE LADY DUNGUEIGH.
Mistress, — I long to hear from you, and how you go on with
Christ. I am sure that Christ and you once met. I pray you to
fasten your grips ;* there is holding and drawing, and much sea-
way to Heaven, and we are often sea-sick, but the voyage is so
needful, that we must on any terms take shipping with Christ. I
believe it is a good country which we are going to, and there is
ill lodging in this smoky house of the world, in which we are yet
living. Oh, that we should love smoke so well, and clay that
holdeth our feet fast ! It were our happiness to follow after Christ,
and to anchor ourselves upon the Rock, in the upper side of the
veil. Christ and Satan are now drawing to parties ; and they are
blind who see not Scotland divided into two camps, and Christ
coming out with his white banner of love, and he hangeth that
over the heads of his soldiers ; and the other captain, the Dragon,
is coming out with a great black flag, and crieth, " The world,
1 Furnish. 2 To take up house, to enter on house-keeping.
3 Goods removable from one residence to another. ^ Answerable.
5 Meet. 6 Gripe, hold.
410 Rutherford's letters.
the world, ease, honor, and a whole skin, and a soft couch ;" and
there lie they, and leave Christ to fend for » himself.
My counsel is, that ye come out and leave the multitude, and
let Christ have your company. Let them take clay and this pres-
ent world, who love it. Christ is a more worthy and noble por-
tion ; blessed are those who get him. It is good, ere the storm rise,
to make ready all, and to be prepared to go to the camp with ,
Christ, seeing he will not keep the house, nor sit at the fire-side "'
with couchers.2 ^ shower for Christ is little enough. Oh, I find
all too little for him ! Wo, wo, wo is me, that I have no propine ^
for my Lord Jesus. My love is so feckless,* that it is a shame to
offer it to him. Oh, if it were as broad as Heaven, as deep as the
sea, I would gladly bestow it upon him ! I persuade you, that
God is wringing grapes of red wine for Scotland ; and that this
land shall drink, and spue, and fall. His enemies shall drink the
thick of it, and the grounds of it. But Scotland's withered tree
shall blossom again ; and Christ shall make a second marriage
with her, and take home his wife out of the furnace. But, if our
eyes shall see it, He knoweth who hath created time. Grace be
with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLIX.
TO JONET MACCULLOCH.
Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — Hold
on your course, for, it may be, that I shall not soon see you : ven-
ture through the thick of all things after Christ, and lose not your
Master, Christ, in the throng of this great market. Let Christ
know how heavy, and how many a stone-weight you, and your
cares, burdens, crosses, and sins are. Let him bear all. Make
the heritage sure to yourself: get charters and writs passed and
through; and put on arms for the battle, and keep you fast by
Christ, and then, let the wind blow out of what airth^ it will, your
soul shall not be blown into the sea.
I find Christ the most steadable^ friend and companion in the
world to me now : — the need and usefulness of Christ are seen
best in trials. Oh, if he be not well worthy of his room ! Lodge
him in house and heart; and stir up your husband to seek the
Lord. I wonder that he hath never written to me : I do not forget
hira.
I taught you the whole counsel of God, and delivered it to you :
it will be inquired for at your hands ; have it in readiness against
the time that the Lord ask for it. Make you ready to meet the
1 Shift for. 2 Cowards. 3 Present. ♦ Faithless, feeble.
5 Direction, point of the compass. * Available.
Rutherford's letters. 411
Lord ; and rest and sleep in the love of that Fairest among the
sons of men. Desire Christ's beauty. Give out all your love to
him, and let none fall by. Learn in prayer to speak to him.
Help your mother's soul ; and desire her, from me, to seek the
Lord and his salvation. It is not soon found : many miss it.
Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLX.
1
TO HIS REVEREND, AND VERY DEAR BROTHER, MR. GEORGE
GILLESPIE.
My VERY DEAR BROTHER, — I received yours.— I am still with
the Lord. His cross hath done that which I thought impossible
once; Christ keepeth tryste' in the fire and water with his own,
and cometh ere our breath go out, and ere our blood grow cold.
Blessed are they whose feet escape the great, golden net that is
now spread. It is happiness to take the crabbed, rough, and poor
side of Christ's world, which is a lease of crosses and losses for
him ; for Christ's incomes and casualties that follow him are
many ; and it is not a little one. that a good conscience may be
had in following him. This is true gain, and must be labored for,
and loved.
Many give Christ for a shadow, because Christ was rather
beside their conscience, in a dead and reprobate light, than in
their conscience. Let us, therefore, be ballasted with grace, that
we be not blown over, and that we stagger not. Yet a little
while, and Christ and his redeemed ones shall fill the field, and
come out victorious : Christ's glory of triumphing in Scotland is
yet in the bud, and in the birth ; but the birth cannot prove an
abortion. He shall not faint nor be discouraged, till he hath
brought forth judgment unto victory. Let us still mind our
Covenant : and the very God of peace be with you.
Your brother in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 9, 1637.
LETTER CCLXI.
TO HIS REVEREND, AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. ROBERT BLAIR.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — The reason ye gave for
not writing to me, aflfecteth me much, and giveth me a dash,
when such an one as ye conceive an opinion of me, or of any-
thing in me. The truth is, when I come home to myself, oh,
what penury do I find, and how feckless ^ is my supposed stock,
1 Keep tryste, obtemperate an appointment. 2 Worthless.
412 . Rutherford's letters.
and how little have I ! He to whom I am as crystal, and who
seeth through me, and perceiveth the least mote that is in me,
knoweth that I speak what I think and am convinced of: but
men cast me through a gross and wide sieve. My very dear
brother, the room of the least of all saints is too great for the like
of me ; but, lest this should seem art, to fetch home reputation, I
speak no more of it. It is my worth to be Christ's ransomed
sinner and sick one ; his relation to me is, that I am sick, and he
is the Physician of whom I stand in need. Alas, how often play
I fast and loose with Christ ! He bindeth, I loose ; he buildeth, I
cast down ; he trimmeth up a salvation for me, and I mar it ; I
cast outi with Christ, and he agreeth with me again, twenty
times a-day ; I forfeit my kingdom and heritage ; I lose what I
had; but Christ is at my back, and following on, to stoop and
take up what falleth from me. Were I in Heaven, and had the
crown on my head, if Free-will were my tutor, I should lose
Heaven : seeing I lose myself, what wonder I should let go, and
lose Jesus, my Lord ? Oh, well to me for evermore, that I have
cracked my credit with Christ, and cannot by law at all borrow
from him, upon my feckless*^ and worthless bond and faith ! For
my faith and reputation with Christ, is, that I am a creature that
God will not put any trust into. I was, and am bewildered with
temptations, and wanted a guide to Heaven : — oh, what have I to
say of that excellent, surpassing, and super-eminent thing, they
call. The grace of God, the way of free redemption in Christ !
And when poor, poor I, dead in law, was sold, fettered, and
imprisoned, in justice's closest ward, which is hell and damnation ;
when I, a wretched one, lighted upon noble Jesus, eternally kind
Jesus, tender-hearted Jesus ; nay, when he lighted upon me first,
and knew me ; I found that he scorned to take a price, or any-
thing like hire, of angels or seraphim, or any of his creatures ;
and, therefore, I would praise him for this, that the whole army
of the redeemed ones sit rent-free in Heaven. Our holding is
better than blench :^ we are all freeholders. And seeing tliat our
eternal feu-duty* is but thanks, oh, woful me! that 1 have but
spilled 5 thanks, lame, and broken, and miscarried praises to give
him, and so my silver^ is not good and current with Christ, were
it not that free merits have stamped it, and washen^ it and me
both ! And for my silence I see somewhat better through it now.
If my high and lofty One, my princely and royal Master, say,
"Hold, hold thy peace, I lay bonds on thee, thou must speak
none," I would fain be content, and let my fire be smothered
under ashes, without light or tiame ! I cannot help it. I take
laws from my Lord, but I give none.
As for your journey to F., ye do well to follow it. The camp
is Christ's ordinary bed. A carried bed is kindly to the Beloved,
1 Fall out. 2 Feeble.
3 Blcnch-holding, is a holding by the payment, if demanded, of some nominal quit-
rent, as a rose, an arrow, etc. * Yearly rent for a fief.
5 Spoiled. s Money, ' Washed.
Rutherford's letters. 413
down in this lower house. It may be, and who knoweth but our
Lord has some centurions, whom ye are sent to, seeing your
angry Mother denielh you lodging and house-room with her.
Christ's call to unknown faces must be your second wind, seeing
ye cannot have a first. Oh, that our Lord would water again
with a new visit, this piece withered and dry hill of our Widow —
Mount Zion !
My dear brother, I shall think it comfort, if ye speak my name
to our Well-beloved. Wherever ye are, I am mindful of you.
Oh, that the Lord would yet make the light of the moon in
Scotland as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven-
fold brighter. For myself, as yet I have received no answer
whither to go. I wait on. Oh, that Jesus had my love ! Let
matters frame as they list, I have some more to do with Christ ;
yet I would fain we were nearer.
Now the great Shepherd of the sheep, the very God of peace,
establish and confirm you, till the day of his coming.
Yours, in his lovely and sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 9, 1637.
LETTER CCLXIL
TO THE LADY CARLTON.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — My soul
longeth once again to be amongst you, and to behold that beauty
of the Lord, that I would see in his house ; but I know not if He
in whose hands are all our ways, seeth it expedient for his glory.
I owe m)'^ Lord, I know, submission of spirit, suppose he should
turn me into a stone, or pillar of salt. Oh. that I were he in
whom my Lord could be glorified ! suppose my little heaven were
forfeited, to buy glory to him before men and angels ; suppose my
want of his presence, and separation from Christ were a pillar as
high as ten heavens for Christ's glory to stand upon, above all the
world. What am I to him ? How little am I, (though my feathers
stood out as broad as the morning light,) to such a high, to such
a lofty, to such a never-enough admired and glorious Lord ! My
trials are heavy, because of my sad Sabbaths ; but I know that
they are less than my high provocations. I seek no more than
that Christ may be the gainer, and I the loser ; that he may be
raised and heightened, and I cried down, and my worth made
dust before his glory. Oh, that Scotland, all with one shout,
would cry up Christ, and that his name were high in this land !
I find the very utmost borders of Christ's high excellency and
deep sweetness. Heaven's and earth's wonder. Oh, what is he ?
if I could but win in ^ to see his inner side ! Oh, I am run dry
of loving, and wondering, and adoring of that greatest and most
1 Get in.
414 Rutherford's letters.
admirable One ! Wo, wo is me, I have not. half love for him !
Alas, what can my drop do to his great sea ! what gain is it to
Christ, that I have casten my little sparkle into his great fire !
What can I give to him ! Oh, that I had love to fill a thousand
worlds, that I might empty my soul of it all upon Christ ! I
think I have just reason to quit my part of any hope or love that
I have to this scum, and the refuse of the dross of God's work-
manship, this vain earth. I owe to this stormy world, (whose
kindness and heart to me have been made of iron, or a piece of a
wild sea-island, that never a creature of God lodged in,) not a
look : I owe it no love, no hope ; and, therefore, oh, if ' my love
were dead to it, and my soul dead to it ! What am I obliged to
this house of my pilgrimage ? A straw for all that God hath
made, to my soul's liking, except God, and that lovely One, Jesus
Christ. Seeing I am not this world's debtor, I desire that I may
be stripped of all confidence in anything but my Lord, that he
may be for me, and I for my only, only, only Lord ; that he may
be the morning and evening tide, the top and the root of my
joys, and the heart and flower and yolk of all my soul's delights.
Oh, let me never lodge any creature in my heart and confidence !
Let the house be for him, I rejoice, that sad days cut oft' a piece
of the lease of my short life ; and that my shadow, even while I
suffer, weareth long, and my evening hasteneth on. I have cause
to love home with all my heart ; and to take the opportunity of
the day to hasten to the end of my journey, before the night come
on, wherein a man cannot see to walk or work ; that once,^ after
my falls, I may at night fall in, weary and tired as I am, into
Christ's bosom, and betwixt his breasts. Our prison cannot be
our best country. This world looketh not like Heaven and the
happiness that our tired souls would be at ; and, therefore, it were
good to seek about for the wind, and hoist up our sails towards
our New Jerusalem, for that is our best.
Remember a prisoner to Christ. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his only Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLXin.
TO WILLIAM RIGGE, OF ATHERNIE.
Much honored, and worthy Sir, — Your letter, full of com-
plaints, bemoaning your guiltiness, hath humbled me. But give
me leave to say that ye seem to be too far upon the Law's side ;
ye will not gain much to be the law's advocate. I thought ye
had not been the law's, but Grace's man ; nevertheless, I am sure
that ye desire to take God's part against yourself. Whatever
your guiltiness be, yet when it falleth into the sea of God's mercy,
1 Oh, that. * At last.
Rutherford's letters. 415
it is but like a drop of blood fallen into the great ocean. There
is nothing here to be done, but to let Christ's doom light on the
Old Man, and let him bear his condemnation, seeing in Christ he
was condemned ; for the law hath but power over your worst
half Let the blame, therefore, lie where the blame should be ;
and let the New Man be sure to say, " I am comely as the tents
of Kedar, howbeit I be black and sun-burnt, by sitting neighbor
beside a body of sin." I seek no more here than room for Grace's
defence, and Christ's white throne, whereto a sinner, condemned
by the law, may appeal. But the use that I make of it, is, I am
sorry that I am not so tender and thin-skinned, though I am sure
that Christ may find employment for his calling in me, if in any
living, seeing, from my youth upward, I have been making up
the blackest process that any minister in the world, or any other
can answer to.
And, when I had done this, I painted a providence of my own,
and wrote ease for myself, and a peaceable ministry, and the sun
shining on me, till I should be in at Heaven's gates : — such green
and raw thoughts had I of God ! I thought also of a sleeping
devil, that would pass by the like of me, lying in muirs' and out-
fields ; ^ so I bigged ^ the gowk's nest,* and dreamed of dying at
ease, and living in a fool's paradise : but since I came hither, I
am often so, as they would have much rhetoric that could per-
suade me, that Christ hath not written wrath on my dumb and
silent Sabbaths ; (wliich is a persecution of the latest edition, being
used against none in this land, that I can learn of, besides me ;)
and often I lie under a non-entry, and would gladly sell all my
joys to be confirmed free tenant of the King Jesus, and to have
sealed assurances — but I see often blank papers. And my great-
est desires are these two : — 1. That Christ would take me in hand
to cure me, and undertake for a sick man. I know that I should
not die under his hand ; and yet in this, while I still doubt, I be-
lieve through a cloud, tliat sorrow, which hath no eyes, hath but
put a veil on Christ's love. — 2. It pleaseth him often, since I came
hither, to come with some short blinks^ of his sweet love; and
then, because I have none to help me to praise his love, and can
do him no service in my own person, (as I once thought I did in
his temple,) I die with wishes and desires to take up house, and
dwell at the Well-side, and to have him praised and set on high.
But alas ! what can the like of me do, to get a good name raised
upon my Well-beloved Lord Jesus, suppose I could desire to be
suspended forever, of my part of heaven, for his glory? I am
sure, if I could get my will of Christ's love, and could once be over
head and ears, in the believed, apprehended, and seen love of the
Son of God, it were the fulfilling of the desires of the only happi-
• Extensive tracts of waste land, covered with heath.
2 Wild, unfrequented places. 3 Builded.
< Cuckoo's nest. The cuckoo is understood not to build a nest of her own, but to
lay her eggs in that of another bird ; hence, to big, or build the gowk's, or cuckoo's
nest, to rest on unfounded hopes. 5 Ghmpses.
416 RUTHERFORD S LETTERS.
ness I would be at. But the truth is, I hinder my communion
with him, because of the want of both faith and repentance, and
because I will make an idol of Christ's kisses. 1 will neither lead
nor drive, except I see Christ's love run in my channel ; and when
I wait and look for him the upper way, I see his wisdom is pleased
to play me a slip, and come the lower way : so that 1 have not the
right art of guiding Christ; for there is art and wisdom required
in guiding of Christ's love aright when we have gotten it. Oh,
how far are his ways above mine ! Oh, how little of him do I
see ! And when I am as dry as a burnt heath, in a drouthy '
summer, and when my root is withered, howbeit I think then,
that I would drink a sea-full of Christ's love, ere ever I would let
the cup go from my head ; yet I get nothing but delays, as if he
would make hunger my daily food. I think myself also hungered
of hunger ; — the rich Lord Jesus satisfy a famished man.
Grace be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept, 10, 1637.
LETTER CCLXIV.
TO THE LADY CRAIGHALL.
Honorable, and Christian Lady, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. — I cannot but write to your Ladyship, of the sweet and
glorious terms I am in with the most joyful Kmg that ever was,
under this well-thriving and prosperous cross. It is my Lord's
salvation, wrought by his own right hand, that the water doth not
suffocate the breath of hope, and joyful courage in the Lord Jesus ;
for his own person is still in the camp with his poor soldier. I see
that the cross is tied, with Christ's hand, to the end of an honest
profession. We are but fools to endeavor to loose Christ's knot.
When I consider the comforts of God, I durst not consent to sell
or wadset^ my short life-rent of the cross of the Lord Jesus. I
know that Christ bought with his own blood a right to sanctified
and blessed crosses, in as far as they blow me over the water to
my long desired home : and it were not good that Christ should
be the buyer and I the seller. I know that time and death shall
take sufferings fairly off my hand. I hope we shall have an hon-
est parting at night, when this cold and frosty afternoon-tide of
my evil and rough day shall be over. Weil is my soul of either
sweet or sour, that Christ hath any part or portion in : if he be at
the one end of it, it shall be well with me. I shall die ere I libel
faults against Christ's cross. It shall have my testimonial^ under
my hand, as an honest and saving mean of Christ for mortifica-
tion and faith's growth. I have a stronger assurance, since I came
over the Forth, of the excellency of Jesus, than I had before. I
> Droughty. 2 Alienate. 3 Certificate.
Rutherford's letters. 417
am rather aooiit mm than in him, while I am absent from him in
this house of clay. But I would be in Heaven for no other cause
than to essay and try what boundless jo)'^ it must be to be over
head and ears in my Well-beloved Christ's love. Oh, that fair
One hath my heart for evermore ! But alas, it is over little for
him ! Oh, if it were better and more worthy for his sake ! Oh,
if ^ I might meet with him, face to face, on this side of eternity,
and might have leave to plead with him, that I am so hungered
and famished here, with the niggardly portion of his love that he
giveth me ! Oh, that I might be carver and steward myself, at
mine own will, of Christ's love ! (if 1 may lawfully wish this,) then
would I enlarge my vessel, (alas ! a narrow and ebb'^ soul,) and
take in a sea of his love. My hunger for it, is hungry and lean,
in believing that ever I shall be satisfied with that love : so fain
would I have what I know I cannot hold. O Lord Jesus, delight-
est thou, delightest thou, to pine and torment poor souls with the
want of thy incomparable love ! Oh, if ^ I durst call thy dispensa-
tion cruel ! I know that thou thyself art mercy, without either
brim or bottom : I know that thou art a God bank-full' of mercy
and love ; but, oh, alas ! little of it cometh my way. I die to look
afar off to that love, because I can get but little of it. But hope
saith, " This providence shall ere long look more favorably upon
poor bodies," and on me also. Grace be with your Ladyship's
spirit.
Your Ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 10, 1637.
LETTER CCLXV.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE, MY LORD LOUDON.
Right Honorable, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your
Lordsliip. — I rejoice exceedingly, to hear that your Lordship hath
a good mind to Christ, and his now borne-down truth. My very
dear Lord, go on, in the strength of the Lord, to carry your honors
and worldly glory to the New Jerusalem : for this cause your
Lordship received these of the Lord. This is a sure way for the
establishment of your House, if ye be of those who are willing, in
your place, to build Zion's old waste places in Scotland. Your
Lordship wanteth not God's and man's law both, now to come to
the streets for Christ: and suppose the bastard laws of man were
against you, it is an honest and zealous error, if here ye slip
against a point or punctilio of standing policy. When your foot
slippeth in such known ground, as is the royal prerogative of our
high and most truly dread Sovereign, (who hath many crowns on
his head.) and the liberties of his house, he will hold you up.
Blessed shall they be, who take Babel's little ones, and dash their
1 Oh, that. 2 Shallow. 3 pull to the bank.
27
418 Rutherford's letters.
heads against, the stones : I wish your Lordship may have a share
of that blessing-, with other worthy nobles in our land.
It is trne that it is now accounted wisdom for men to be part-
ners in pulhng up the stakes, and loosing the cords of the tent of
Christ : but I am persuaded, that that wisdom is cried down in
Heaven, and shall never pass for true wisdom with the Lord,
whose word crieth shame upon wit against Christ and truth : and,
accordingly, it shall prove shame and confusion of face in the end.
Our Lord hath given your Lordship light of a better stamp, and
learning also, wherein ye are not behind the disputer and the
scribe. Oh, what a blessed thing is it, to see nobility, learning,
and sanctification, all concur in one ! For these ye owe yourself
to Christ and his kingdom. God hath bewildered and bemisted^
the wit and the learning of the scribes and disputers of this time ;
they look asquint to the Bible ; this blinding and bemisting^ world
blindfoldeth men's light, that they are afraid to see straight out
before them : nay, their very light playeth the knave, or worse, to
truth. Your Lordship knoweth that within a little while, policy
against truth shall blush, and the works of men shall be burned
up, even their spider's-web, who spin out many hundred ells and
webs of indifferences in the Lord's worship, moe than ever Moses,
who would have a hoof material, and Daniel, who would have a
look out at a window, a matter of life and death — than ever, I say,
these men of God dreamed of Alas, that men dare to shape, carve,
cut, and clip our King's princely testament in length and breadth,
and in all dhnensions, answerable to the conception of such policy
as a head-of-wit^ thinketh a safe and trim way of serving God!
How have men forgotten the Lord, that they dare to go against
even that truth, which once they preached themselves, howbeit
their sermons now be as thin sown as strawberries in a wood or
wilderness? Certainly the sweetest and safest course is, for this
short time of the afternoon of this old and declining world, to
stand for Jesus ; he hath said it, and it is our part to believe it,
that ere it be long, "Time shall be no more, and the Heaven
shall wax old as a garment." Do we not see it already an old,
and thread-bare garment, full of holes? Doth not cripple^ and
lame nature tell us, that the Lord will fold up the old garment,
and lay it aside : and that the heavens shall be folded together as
a scroll, and this pest-house shall be burnt with lire, and that both
plenishing* and walls shall melt with fervent heat? for at the
Lord's coming, he will do with this earth, as men do with a leper-
house ;* he will burn the walls with fire, and the plenishing* of
the house also ; (2 Peter iii. 10, 12.) My dear Lord, how will ye
rejoice in that day, to have Christ, angels, Heaven, and your own
conscience to smile upon you? I am persuaded that one sick
night, through the terrors of the Almighty, would make men,
(whose conscience has such a wide tiiroat that an image like a
cathedral church would go down it,) have other thoughts of Christ
' To beviisty to envelop in mist. 2 a wiseacre.
3 Halting, < Furniture s Lazaretto.
Rutherford's letters. 419
and his worship, than now they please themselves with. The
scarcity of faitli in the earth saitli, " We are hard upon the last
nick' of time :" blessed are those who keep their garments clean
against the Bridegroom's coming. There shall be spotted clothes,
and many defiled garments, at his last coming ; and, therefore,
few found worthy to walk with him in white.
I am persuaded, my Lord, that this poor travailing Woman, our
pained Church, is with child of victory, and shall bring forth a
Man-child all lovely and glorious, that shall be caught up to God
and to his throne, howbeit the Dragon, in his followers, be attend-
ing the child-birth pain, as an Egyptian midwife, to receive the
birth and strangle it. But they shall be disappointed who thirst
for the destruction of Zion : (Isa, xxix. 8,) " They shall be as when
a hungry man dreameth that he eateth; but, behold, he awaketh,
and his soul is empty : or when a thirsty man dreameth that he
drinketh ; but, behold, he awaketh, and is faint, and his soul is not
satisfied : so shall it be," I say, " with the multitude of all the na-
tions that fight against Mount Zion." Therefore, the weak and
feeble, those that are "as signs and wonders in Israel," have
chosen the best side, even the side that victory is upon ; and I
think this is no evil policy.
Verily, for myself, I am so well pleased with Christ, and his no-
ble and honest-born cross, this cross that is come of Christ's house,
and is of kin '^ to himself, that I should weep if it should come to
niffering^ and bartering of lots and condition with those that are
" at ease in Zion." I hold still my choice, and bless myself in it.
I see and I believe, that there is salvation in this way, which is
everywhere spoken against. I hope to go to eternity, and to ven-
ture on the last evil to the saints, even upon death, fully persuaded
that this only, even this, is tiie saving way for racked consciences,
and for weary and laden sinners, to find ease and peace for ever-
more in. And, indeed, it is not for any worldly respect that I
speak so of it. The weather is not so hot, that I have great cause
to startle^ in my prison, or to boast of that entertainment that my
good friends, the prelates, intend for me, which is banishment, if
they shall obtain their desire, and effectuate what they design.
But let it come, I rue not that I made Christ my wale and my
choice ;5 I think him aye the longer the better.
My Lord, it shall be good service to God, to hold your noble
friend and chiefs upon a good course for the truth of Christ.
Now the very God of peace establish your Lordship in Christ
Jesus unto the end.
Your Lordship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 10, 1G37.
1 Moment. ^ Related. 3 Exchanging.
i To run wildly about in an excited state, as cattle do in very hot weather,
s The very best that could be chosen. « Argyll
420 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCLXVI.
to mr. david dickson.
Reverend and well-beloved Brother in the Lord, —
I bless the Lord, who hath so wonderfully stopped the on-going
of that lawless process against you. The Lord reigneth, and hath
a saving eye upon you and your ministry ; and, therefore, fear not
what men can do. I bless the Lord, that the Irish ministers find
employment, and the professors comfort of their ministry. Believe
me, I durst not, as I am now disposed, hold an honest brother out
of the pulpit. [ trust that the Lord will guard you, and hide you
in the shadow of his hand ; I am not pleased with any that are
against you in that.
I see this, that in prosperity men's conscience will not start at
small sins ; but if some had been where I have been since I came
from you, a little more would have caused their eyes to water, and
trouble their peace. Oh, how ready are we to incline to the world's
hand! Our arguments, being well examined, are often drawn
from our skin ; the whole skin, and a peaceable tabernacle, is a
topic-maxim in great request in our logic.
I find a little brairding' of God's seed in this town, for the which
the doctors have told me their mind, that they cannot bear with
it, and have examined and threatened the people that haunt my
company. I fear 1 get not leave to winter here ; and whither I
go I know not; 1 am ready at the Lord's call. I would, I could
make acquaintance with Christ's cross, for I find comforts lie to
and follow upon the cross. I suffer, in my name, by them ; but
I take it as a part of the crucifying of the Old Man. Let them
cut the throat of my credit, and do as they like best with it.
When the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good
name from me, in the way to Heaven, I know that Christ will
take my name out of the mire, and wash it, and restore it to me
again. I would have a mind, (if the Lord would be pleased to give
me it,) to be a fool for Christ's sake. Sometimes, while I have Christ
in my arms, I fall asleep in the sweetness of his presence, and he,
in my sleep, stealeth away out of my arms ; and when I awake,
I miss him.
I am much comforted with my Lady Pitshgo, a good woman,
and acquainted with God's ways.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 11, 1637.
1 Sprouting and appearing of seed above the ground.
Rutherford's letters. 421
LETTER CCLXVII.
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF EARLSTON.
Much honored Sir, — Howbeit I should have been glad to
have seen you ; yet, seeing that our Lord hath been pleased to
break the snare of your adversaries, I heartily bless our Lord on
your behalf. Our crosses for Christ are not made of iron ; they
are softer and of more gentle metal : it is easy for God to make a
fool of the Devil, the father of all fools : — as for me, I but breathe
out what my Lord breathed in. The scum and froth of my let-
ters I father upon my unbelieving heart. I know that your Lord
hath something to do with you, because Satan and malice have
shot sore at you ; but your bow abideth in its strength. Ye shall
not, by my advice, be a halver with Christ, to divide the glory of
your deliverance betwixt yourself and him, or any other second
mean whatsoever. Let Christ, (as it setteth^ him well,) have all
the glory and triumph his lone.^ The Lord set himself on high
in you.
I see that Christ can borrow a cross for some hours, and set his
servants beside it, rather than under it, and win the plea too, yea,
and make glory to himself, and shame to his enemies, and com-
fort to his children, out of it :■ — but whether Christ buy or borrow
crosses, he is King of crosses, and King of devils, and King over
Hell, and King over malice. When he was in the grave, he
came out, and brought the keys with him. He is Lord Jailer :
nay, what say II he is Captain of the castle, and he hath the
keys of death and Hell : and what are our troubles but little
deaths : and He who commandeth the great castle commandeth
the little also.
2. I see that a hardened face, and two skins upon our brows,
against the winter hail and stormy wind, is meetest for a poor
traveller in a winter journey to Heaven. Oh, what art is it to learn
to endure hardness, and to learn to go barefooted either through
the Devil's fiery coals or his frozen waters.
3. I am persuaded that a sea-venture with Christ maketh great
riches : is not the ship of our King Jesus coming home, and shall
not we get part of the gold 1 Alas ! we fools miscount our gain
when we seem losers. Believe me, I have no challenges ' against
this well-born cross : for it is come of Christ's house, and is hon-
orable, and is propine,* " To you it is given to suffer." — Oh, what
fools are we, to undervalue his gifts, and to lightly ^ that which is
true honor! For if we could be faithful, our tackling shall not
loose, or our mast break, or our sails blow into the sea. The bas-
tard crosses, the kinless and base-born crosses of worldlings for
evil-doing, must be heavy and grievous ; but our afflictions are
light and momentary.
1 Becomes. 2 To himself alone. 3 Accusations.
* Present, gift. 5 Make light of.
422 Rutherford's letters.
4. I think myself happy that I have lost credit with Christ, and
that in this bargain, 1 am Christ's sworn dyvour,' to whom he
will lippen ^ nothing, no, not one pin in the work of my salvation.
Let me stand in black and white in the dyvour-book^ before
Christ. I am happy that my salvation is concredited^ to Christ's
mediation. Christ oweth no faith to me, to lippen^ anything to
me ; but oh, what faith and credit I owe to him ! Let my name
fall, and let Christ's name stand in honor with men and angels.
Alas ! I have no room to spread out my affection before God's
people : and I see not how I can shout out and cry out the love-
liness, the high honor, and the glory of my fairest Lord Jesus.
Oh, that he would let me have a bed to lie on, to be delivered of
my birth, that I might paint him out in his beauty to men, as I
dow.s
5. I wondered once at providence, and called white providence
black and unjust, that I should be smothered in a town where no
soul will take Christ off my hand ; but providence hath another
lustre with God than with my bleared eyes. I proclaim m3^self a
blind body, who knoweth not black and white, in the unco" course
of God's providence. Suppose that Christ should set Hell where
Heaven is, and devils up in glory beside the elect angeli^, (which
yet cannot be,) I would I had a heart to acquiesce in his way,
without further dispute. I see that infinite wisdom is the mother
of his judgments, and that his ways are past finding out.
6. I cannot learn ; but I desire to learn to bring my thoughts,
will, and lusts, in-under'^ Christ's feet, that he may trample upon
them. But, alas ! I am still upon Christ's wrong side.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 13, 1637.
LETTER CCLXVm.
TO THE LADY K I L C O N a U H A I R .
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I received
your letter. I am heartily content, that ye love and own this op-
pressed and wronged cause of Christ; and that now, when so
many have miscarried, ye are in any measure taken with the
love of Jesus. Weary not, but come in, and see if there be not
more in Christ than the tongue of men and angels can express.
If ye seek a gate^ to Heaven, the way is in him, or, he is it.
What ye want is treasured up in Jesus, and he saith, all his are
yours ; even his Kingdom, he is content to divide it betwixt him
and you : yea, his throne and his glory, (Luke xxii. 29, 30, John
xvii. 24, and Rev. iii. 2L) And, therefore, take pains to climb up
1 Bankrupt. 2 Entrust. 3 Bankrupt-roll. * Accredited.
8 Am able. « Strange. 7 Under. ^ Way.
Rutherford's letters. 423
to that besieged house to Christ : for devils, men, and armies of
temptations are lying about the house, to hold out all that are out.
and it is taken with violence. It is not a smooth and easy way,
neither will your weather be fair and pleasant ; but whosoever
hath seen the invisible God, and the fair City, make no reckoning
of losses or crosses. In ye must be, cost you what it will. Stand
not for a price, and for all that ye have, to win the castle ; the
rights to it are won to you, and it is disponed' to you in the Tes-
tament of your Lord Jesus ; and see what a fair legacy your dying
Friend, Christ, hath left you : — and there wanteth nothing but
possession. Then get up in the strength of the Lord ; get over
the water to possess that good land. It is better than a land of
olives and wine-trees ; for the Tree of life, that beareth twelve
manner of fruits every month, is there before you ; and a pure
River of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God,
and of the Lamb, is there. Your time is short, therefore, lose no
time. Gracious and faithful is He who hath called you to his
Kingdom and glory. The city is yours by free conquest ^ and by
promise, and, therefore, let no uiico^ lord-idol put you from your
own. The Devil hath cheated the simple heir of his paradise,
and, by enticing us to taste of the Forbidden Fruit, hath, as it
were, bought us out of our kindly heritage.^ But our Lord, Christ
Jesus, hath done more than bought the Devil by,^ for he hath re-
deemed the wadset,^ and made the poor heir free to the inherit-
ance. If we knew the glory of our Elder Brother in Heaven, we
would long to be there to see him, and to get our liU of Heaven.
We children think the earth a fair garden, but it is but God's out-
field,^ and wild, cold, barren ground. All things are fading that
are here. It is our happiness to make sure of Christ to ourselves.
Thus remembering my love to your husband, and wishing to
him what I write to you, I commit you to God's tender mercy.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 13, 1637.
LETTER CCLXIX.
TO ROBERT LENNOX, OF DISDOVE.
Worthy and dear Brother, — I forgot you not in my
bonds. I know that ye are looking to Christ ; and I beseech you
to follow your look. I can say more of Christ now by experience,
(though he be infinitely above, and beyond all that can be said of
him,) than when I saw you : I am drowned over head and ears
1 Bequeathed. 2 Acquisition by purchase. 3 Strange.
4 Heritage to which we could chiiin a species of right in consequence of our origin.
5 Out. ^ AUenated property.
7 A term appHed to the worst of the arable parts of a farm, which, according to the
ancient method of Scottish husbandry, used to be cropped without having been ma-
nured till they were worn out, or, as it was called, scourg-erf, and thus rendered unfit for
bearing corn for some year^.
424 Rutherford's letters.
in his love. Sell, sell, sell all things for Christ. If this whole
world were the balk ' of a balance, it would not be able to bear
the weight of Christ's love ; men and angels have short arms to
fathom it. Set j^our feet upon this piece blue and base clay of an
over-gilded and fair-plastered world : — an hour's kissing of Christ's
is worth a world of worlds.
Sir, make sure work of your salvation: build not upon sand;
lay the foundation upon the Rock in Zion. Strive to be dead to
this world, and to your will and lusts. Let Christ have a com-
manding power and a king's throne in you. Walk with Christ,
howbeit the world should take the skin off your face : — ^I promise
you that Christ will win the field. Your pastors cause you to err.
Except you see Christ's word, go not one foot with them. Coun-
tenance not the reading of that Romish service-book.^ Keep
your garments clean, as ye would walk with the Lamb clothed in
white. The wrongs which I suffer are recorded in Heaven ; our
great Master and Judge will be upon us all, and bring us before
the sun in our blacks and whites : blessed are they who watch
and keep themselves in God's love. Learn to discern the Bride-
groom's tongue, and to give yourself to prayer and reading. Ye
were often a hearer of me. I would put my heart's blood on the
doctrine which I taught, as the only way to salvation : — go not
from it, my dear brother. What I write to you I write to your
wife also. Mind Heaven and Christ, and keep the spark of the
love of Christ which you have gotten. Christ will blow on it if
ye entertain it, and your end shall be peace. There is a fire in our
Zion, but our Lord is but seeking a new bride refined and purified
out of the furnace, I assure you, howbeit we be nicknamed
Puritans, that all the powers of the world shall not prevail against
us. Remember, though a sinful man write to you, that those
people shall be in Scotland as a green olive-tree, and a field
blessed of the Lord ; and that it shall be proclaimed — "Up, up
with Christ, and down, down with all contrary powers."
Sir, pray for me — I name you to the Lord, — for further evil is
determined against me.
Remember my love to Christian Murray, and her daughter. I
desire her, in the edge'* of her evening, to wait a little, the King
is coming, and he hath something, that she never saw with him.
Heaven is no dream ; " Come and see" will teach her best.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 13, 1G37.
1 Beam. 2 Book of Common Prayer. 3 Twilight.
Rutherford's letters. 425
LETTER CCLXX.
TO MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Dearest in our Lord Jesus, — Count it your honor, that
Christ hatii begun at you, to refine you first. " Fear not," saith
The Amen, The True and Faithful Witness. I write to you as
my Master hveth, upon the word of my royal King, continue in
prayer and in watching, and your glorious deliverance is coming.
Christ is not far off. A fig, a straw, for all the bits of clay that
are risen against us. Ye shall thresh the mountains, and fan
them like chaff, (Isa. xli.) If ye slack your hands at your meet-
ings, and your watching to prayer, then it would seem that our
Rock hath sold us ; but be diligent, and be not discouraged. I
charge you in Christ, to rejoice, give thanks, believe, be strong in
the Lord. That burning bush in Galloway and Kirkcudbright
shall not be burnt to ashes, for the Lord is in the bush. Be not
discouraged, that banishment is to be procured by the King's
warrant to the Council, against me : the earth is my Lord's ; I
am filled with his sweet love and running over. I rejoice to hear
that ye are on your journey. Such news as I hear, of all your
faith and love, rejoice my sad heart.
Pray for me, for they seek my hurt ; but I give myself to
prayer. The blessing of my Lord, and the blessing of a prisoner
of Christ be with you. O chosen and greatly beloved Woman,
faint not. Fy, fy, if ye faint now, ye lose a good cause. Double
your meetings ; cease not for Zion's sake, and hold not your peace
till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXL
TO THOMAS CORBET,
Dear Friend,— I forget you not. It will be my joy that ye
follow after Christ till ye find him. My conscience is a feast of
joy to me, that I sought in singleness of heart, for Christ's love,
to put you upon the King's highway to our Bridegroom, and our
Father's house. Thrice blessed are ye, my dear brother, if ye
hold the way.
I believe that ye and Christ once met, I hope ye will not sun-
der' with him. Follow the counsel of the man of God, Mr. Wil-
liam Dalgleish. If ye depart from what I taught you in a hair-
breadth, for fear or favor of men, or desire of ease in this world, I
take Heaven and earth to witness, that ill shall come upon you
* Part from.
Rutherford's letters.
in the end. Build not your nest here : this world is a hard, ill-
made bed ; no rest is in it for your soul. Awake, awake, and
make haste to seek that Pearl, Christ, that this world seeth not.
Your night, and your Master Christ, will be upon you within a
clap ; your hand-breadth of time will not bide you. Take Christ,
hovvbeit a storm follow him ; howbeit this day be not yours and
Christ's, the morrow will be yours and his. I would not exchange .
the joy of my bonds and imprisonment for Christ, with all the
joy of this dirty and foul-skinned world. I have a love-bed with
Christ, and am filled with his love.
I desire your wife to do what I write to you. Let her remem-
ber how dear Christ will be to her, when her breath turneth cold,
and the eye-strings shall break. Oh, how joyful should my soul
be, to know that I had brought on a marriage betwixt Christ and
that people, few or many ; if it be not so, I shall be woe ^ to be a
witness against them. Use prayer : love not the world : be hum-
ble, and esteem little of yourself: love your enemies, and pray
for them : make conscience of speaking truth, when none knoweth
but God. I never eat, but I pray for you all. Pray for me. Ye
and 1 shall see one another up in our Father's house. I rejoice
to hear that your eye is upon Christ. Follow on, hing ^ on, and
quit him not. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your affectionate brother, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXIL
TO MR. GEORGE DUNBAR.
Reverend, and dearly beloved in the Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. — Because your words have strength-
ened many, I was silent, expecting some lines from you in my
bonds ; and this is the cause why I wrote not to you, but now I
am forced to break off and speak. I never believed till now that
there was so much to be found in Christ, on this side of death
and of Heaven. Oh, the ravishments of heavenly joy that may
be had here, in the small gleanings and comforts that fall from
Christ ! What fools are we who know not, and consider not the
weight and the telling that is in the very earnest-penny, and the
first-fruits of our hoped-for harvest ! How sweet, how sweet is
our infeftment ! oh, what then must personal possession be ! I
find that my Lord Jesus hath not miscooked or spilled' this sweet
cross — he hath an eye on the fire and the melting gold, to sepa-
rate the metal and the dross. Oh, how much time would it take
me to read my obligations to Jesus my Lord, who will neither
have the faith of his own to be burnt to ashes, nor yet will have a
poor believer in the fire to be half-raw, like Ephraim's unturned
1 Grieved. 2 Hang. ^ Spoiled.
Rutherford's letters. 427
cake ! This is the wisdom of Him who hath his fire in Zion, and
furnace in Jerusalem. I need not either bud ' or flatter tempta-
tions and crosses, nor strive to buy the Devil, or this mah'cious
world by,^ or redeem their kindness with half a hair-breadth of
truth. He who is surety for his servant for good, doth powerfully
overrule all that. I see my prison hath neither lock nor door : I
am free in my bonds, and my chains are made of rotten straw,
they shall not bide one pull of faith. I am sure that they who
are in Hell, would exchange their torments with our crosses, sup-
pose they should never be delivered, and give twenty thousand
years' torment to boot, to be in our bonds forever ; and, therefore,
we wrong Christ, who sigh, and fear, and doubt, and despond in
them. Our sufferings are washen ^ in Christ's blood, as well as
our souls ; for Christ's merits brought a blessing to the crosses of
the sons of God ; and Jesus hath a back-bond * of all our temp-
tations, that the free-warders^ shall come out by law and justice,
in respect of the infinite and great sum that the Redeemer paid.
Our troubles owe us a free passage through them. Devils and
men, and crosses are our debtors, death and all storms are our
debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the water fraught-free,*
and to set the travellers on their own known ground — therefore
we shall die, and yet live. We are over the water, someway,
already: we are married, and our tocher-good '^ is paid: we are
already more than conquerors. If the Devil and the world knew
how the court with our Lord shall go, I am sure they would hire
death to take us off their hand. Our sufferings are the only
wreck and ruin of the Black Kingdom ; and yet a little, and the
Antichrist must play himself with bones and slain bodies of the
Lamb's followers; but withal we stand with the hundred forty
and four thousand, who are with the Lamb, upon the top of
Mount Zion. Antichrist and his followers are down in the valley
ground : we have the advantage of the hill ; our temptations are
always beneath, our waters are beneath our breath — " as dying,
and behold we live." I never heard before of a living death, or a
quick death but ours: our death is not like the common death ;
Christ's skill, his handy-work, and a new cast of Christ's admi-
rable art, may be seen in our quick death. I bless the Lord, that
all our troubles come through Christ's fingers, and that he casteth
sugar among them, and casteth in some ounce- weights of Heaven,
and of the Spirit of glory, that resteth on suffering believers, into
our cup, in which there is no taste of Hell. My dear brother, ye
know all these better than L I send water to the sea, to speak
of these things to you ; but it easeth me, to desire you to help me
to pay my tribute of praise to Jesus. Oh, what praises I owe
1 Bribe. 2 Off. 3 Washed.
< A bond given by one to the person from whom he has received a previous bond,
engaging that the person who gave the previous bond shall not, in consequence of it,
come to any loss. 5 Prisoners who have acquired a right to be set at hberty.
6 Freight- free. ' Marriage-portion.
428 Rutherford's letters.
him ! I would, I were in my free heritage, that I might begin to
pay my debts to Jesus.
I entreat for your prayers and praises. I forget not you.
Your brother and fellow-sufferer,
In and for Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 17, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXm.
TO JOHN FLEMING, BAILLIE OF LEITH.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — The
Lord hath brought me safe to this strange town. Blessed be his
holy name, I find his cross easy and light, and I hope that he will
be with his poor sold Joseph, who is separated from his brethren.
His comforts have abounded towards rne, as if Christ thought
shame,' (if I may speak so,) to be in the common of '^ such a poor
man as 1 am, and would not have me lose anything in his errands.
My enemies have, contrary to their intention, made me more bless-
ed, and have put me in a sweeter possession of Christ than ever I
had before: only the memory of the fair days I had with my
Well-beloved, amongst the flock intrusted to me, keepeth me low,
and soureth my unseen joy ; but it must be so, and He is wise
who tutoreth me in this way : for that which my brethren have,
and I want, and others of this world have, I am content; my
faith will frist ^ God my happiness. No son is offended that his
father give him not hire twice a-year ; for he is to abide in the
house, when the inheritance is to be divided : — it is better that
God's children live upon hope, than upon hire.
Thus remembering my love to your worthy and kind wife ; I
bless you and her, and all yours, in the Lord's name.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 20, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXIV.
TO WILLIAM GLENDINNING, BAILLIE OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I am
well, honor be to God ! and as well as a rejoicing prisoner of
Christ can be, hoping that one day He, for whom I now suffer,
will enlarge me, and put me above the threatenings of men.
I am sometimes sad, heavy, and casten down, at the memory
of the fair days I had with Christ, in Anwoth, Kirkcudbright, etc.
The remembrance of a feast increaseth hunger in a hungry man ;
1 Were ashamed. 2 Under obligation to. 3 Grant delay in paying.
Rutherford's letters. 429
but who knovveth, but our Lord will yet cover a table in the wil-
derness to his hungry bairns, and build the old waste places in
Scotland, and bring home Zion's captives ? I desire to see no
more glorious sight, till I see the Lamb on his throne, than to see
Mount Zion all green with grass, and the dew lying upon the
tops of the grass, and the crown put upon Christ's head in Scot-
land again : and 1 believe it shall be so, and that Christ will mow
down his enemies, and fill the pits with their dead bodies.
I find people here dry and unco. A man pointed at for suffer-
ing dare not be countenanced ; so that I am like to sit my lone*
upon the ground : but my Lord payeth me well home again ; for
I have neither tongue, nor pen, nor heart to express the sweetness
and excellency of the love of Christ. Christ's honeycombs drop
honey and floods of consolation upon my soul : my chains are
gold; Christ's cross is all over-gilded and perfumed: his prison is
the garden and orchard of my dehghts : I would go through
burning quick to my lovely Christ : I sleep in his arms all the
night, and my head betwixt his breasts: my Well-beloved is alto-
gether lovely : this is all nothing, to that which my soul hath felt.
Let no man, for my cause, scaur ^ at Christ's cross. If my stipend,
place, country, credit, had been an earldom, a kingdom, ten king-
doms, and a whole earth ; all were too little for the crown and
sceptre of ray royal King. Mine enemies, mine enemies have
made me blessed. They have sent me to the Bridegroom's cham-
ber. Love is his banner over me. I live a king's life. I want
nothing but Heaven, and possession of the crown : my earnest is
great ; Christ is no niggard to me. Dear brother, be for the Lord
Jesus, and his heart-broken Bride.
I need not, I hope, remember my distressed brother to your
care. Remember my love to your wife. Let Christ want noth-
ing of us ; his garments shall be rolled in the blood of the slain
of Scotland.
Grace, grace be with you. Pray for Christ's prisoner.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 21, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXV.
TO EARLSTON, YOUNGER
Much honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I
am well ; Christ triumpheth in me, blessed be his name. I have
all things. I burden no man. I see that this earth and the
fulness thereof is my Father's. Sweet, sweet is the cross of my
Lord. The blessing of God upon the cross of my Lord Jesus !
My enemies have contributed (beside their design), to make me
blessed. This is my palace, not my prison ; especially, when my
' Strange. 2 By myself alone. 3 Boggle.
430 Rutherford's letters.
Lord shinetb and smiletb upon his poor afflicted and sold Joseph
who is separated from his brethren. But often he hideth himself,
and there is a day of law, and a court of challenges ^ within me
—I know not if fenced ^ in God's name — but, oh, my neglects!
oh, my unseen guiltiness ! I imagined that a sufferer for Christ
kept the keys of Christ's treasure, and might take out his heart-
full of comforts when he pleased ; but I see, a sufferer and a
witness shall be holden at the door, as well as another poor sinner,
and glad to eat with the bairns, and to take the by-board.^
This cross hath let me see, that Heaven is not at the next door,
and that it is a castle not soon taken. I see, also, that it is
neither pain nor art to play the hypocrite. We have all learned
to sell ourselves for double price ; and to make the people, who
call ten twenty, and twenty an hundred, esteem us half gods, or
men fallen out of the clouds ; but, oh, sincerity, sincerity, if I
knew what sincerity meaneth !
Sir, lay the foundation thus, and ye shall not soon shrink, nor
be shaken. Make tight work at the bottom, and your ship shall
ride against all storms, if withal your anchor be fastened upon
good ground, I mean within the veil. And verily I think this is
all, to gain Christ : all other things are shadows, dreams, fancies,
and nothing.
Sir, remember my love to your mother. I pray for mercy and
grace to her ; I wish her on-going toward Heaven : as I promised
to write, so show her that I want nothing in my Lord's service —
Christ will not be in such a poor man's common as mine.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 22, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXVL
TO JOHN GORDON,
Worthy, and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. — I have been too long in writing to you, but multitude of
letters taketh much time from me.
I bless His great name whom I serve in the Spirit, that if it
come to voting amongst angels and men, how excellent and sweet
Christ is, even in his reproaches and in his cross, I cannot but
vote with the first, that all that is in him, both cross and crown,
kisses and glooms,^ embracements and frownings and strokes, are
sweet and glorious. God send me no more happiness in Heaven,
or out of Heaven, than Christ : for I find this world, when I have
looked upon it on both sides, within and without, and when I have
seen even the laughing and lovel}' side of it, to be but a fool's
idol, a clay prison ; — Lord, let it not be the nest that my hope
1 Accusations. 2 Constituted. 3 Side-table. < Forbidding looks.
Rutherford's letters. 431
buildeth in. I have now cause to judge my part of this earth not
worth a blast of smoke, or a mouthful of brown bread. I wish
that my hope may take a running--leap, and skip over time's
pleasure, sin's plastering and gold-foil, • this vain earth, and rest
upon my Lord. Oh, how great is our night-darkness in this wil-
derness ! To have any conceit at all of this world, is, as if a man
should close his handful of water, and, holding his hand in the
river, say that all the water of the flood is his, as if it were,
indeed, all within the compass of his hand : — who would not
laugh at thoughts of such a crack-brain ? Verily, they have but
an handful of water, and are but like a child claspino- his two
hands about a night-shadow, who idolize any created hope, but
God. I now lightly,'^ and put the price of a dream, or fable, or
black 3 nothing, upon all things, but God, and that desirable and
love-worthy One, my Lord Jesus. Let all the world be nothing,
(for nothing was their seed and mother,) and let God be all
things.
My very dear brother, know that ye are as near Heaven as ye
are far from yourself, and far from the love of a bewitching and
whorish world : — for this world, in its gain and glory, is but the
great and notable common whore, that all the sons of men have
been in fancy and lust withal these 5000 years. The children,
that they have begotten with this uncouth and lustful lover, are
but vanity, dreams, gold-imaginations, and night thoughts. There
is no good ground here, under the covering of Heaven, for men
and poor wearied souls to set down their foot upon. Oh, He who is
called God, that One whom they term Jesus Christ, is worth the
having indeed, even if I had given away all without my eye-holes,
my soul, and myself for sweet Jesus my Lord ! Oh, let the claim
be cancelled, that the creatures have to mo, except that claim my
Lord Jesus hath to me ! Oh, that he would claim poor me, my
silly, light, and worthless soul ! Oh, that he would pursue his
claim to the utmost point, and not want me ! for it is my pain,
and remediless sorrow to want him. I see nothing in this life, but
sinks, and mires, and dreams, and beguiling ditches, and ill ground
for us to build upon.
I am fully persuaded of Christ's victory in Scotland, but I fear
that this land be not yet ripe and white for mercy. Yet I dare
be halver, (upon my salvation,) with the losses of the Church of
Scotland, that her foes, after noon, shall sing dool^ and sorrow for
evermore, and that her joy shall once again be cried up, and her
sky shall clear : — but vengeance and burning shall be to her ad-
versaries, and the sinners of this land. Oh, that we could be
awakened to prayers and humiliation ! Then should our sun
shine like seven suns in the Heaven ; then should the temple of
Christ be builded upon the mountain tops, and the land, from
coast to coast, should be filled with the glory of the Lord.
Brother, your day-task is wearing short ; your hour-glass of this
» Gold-leaf. 2 Lightly esteem. 3 Utter. < Wail,
432 Rutherford's letters.
span-length and hand-breadth of Hfe will quickly pass ; and,
therefore, take order and course with matters betwixt you and
Christ, before it come to open pleading : — there are no quarters to
be had of Christ, in open judgment. I know, that ye see your
thread wearing short, and that there are not many inches to the
thread's end ; and, therefore, lose not time.
Remember me, his prisoner, that it would please the Lord to
bring me again amongst you with abundance of the Gospel.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXVIL
TO WILLIAM RIGGE, OF ATHERNIE.
Worthy, and much honored Sir, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. — How sad a prisoner should I be, if I knew not
that my Lord Jesus had the keys of the prison himself, and that
his death and blood have bought a blessing to our crosses, as well
as to ourselves 1 I am sure that troubles have no prevailing right
over us, if they be but our Lord's Serjeants, to keep us in ward,
while we are in this side of Heaven. I am persuaded also, that
they shall not go over the bound-road,' nor enter into Heaven
with us ; for they find no welcome there, where " there is no
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither any more pain ;"
and, therefore, we shall leave them behind us. Oh, if ^ I could
get as good a gate^ of sin, even this woful and wretched body of
sin, as I get of Christ's cross ! Nay, indeed, I think the cross
beareth both me and itself, rather than I it, in comparison of the
tyranny of the lawless flesh, and wicked neighbor, that dwelleth
beside Christ's new creature. But,, oh, this is that which presseth
me down, and paineth me. Jesus Christ in his saints sitteth
neighbor with an ill second, corruption, deadness, coldness, pride,
lust, worldliness, self-love, security, falsehood, and a world of moe
the like, whicli I find in me, that are daily doing violence to the
New Man. Oh, but we have cause to carry low sails, and to
cleave fast to free grace, free, free grace ! Blessed be our Lord
that ever that way was found out. If my one foot were in Heaven,
and my soul half in, if free-will and corruption were absolute
lords of me, I should never win* wholly in. Oh, but the sweet,
new, and living way, that Christ hath struck up to our home, is a
safe way ! I find now, presence and access a greater dainty than
before ; but yet the Bridegroom looketh through the lattice, and
througli the hole of the door. Oh, if ^ he and I were on fair dry
land together, on the other side of the water.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 30, 1637.
1 Boundary-line. 2 Oh, that. 3 Way. * Get.
Rutherford's letters. 433
LETTER CCLXXVIII.
TO JAMES MURRAY.
Dear Brother, — I received your letter. — I am in good health
of body, but far better in my soul. I find my Lord no worse than
his word. " I will be with him in trouble," is made good to me
now. He heareth the sighing of the prisoner. Brother, I am
comforted in my royal Prince and King. The world knoweth
not our life, it is a mystery to them. We have the sunny side of
the world, and our paradise is far above theirs ; — yea, our weeping
is above their laughing, which is but like the crackling of thorns
under a pot ; and, therefore, we have good cause to fight it out,
for the day of our laureation ^ is approaching. I find my prison
the sweetest place that ever I was in. My Lord Jesus is kind to
me, and hath taken the mask off his face, and is content to quit
me all by-gones.'^ I dare not complain of him. And for my si-
lence, I lay it before Christ. I hope it will be a speaking silence.
He who knoweth what I would, knoweth that my soul desireth
no more, than that King Jesus may be great in the north of Scot-
land, in the south, and in the east and west, through my suffer-
ings for the freedom of my Loid's house and kingdom. If I could
keep good quarters, in time to come, with Christ, I would fear
nothing. But, oh, oh, I complain of my woful outbreakings ! I
tremble at the remembrance of a new out-cast^ betwixt him and
me ; and I have cause, when I consider what sickness and sad
days I have had for His absence who is now come. I find that
Christ cannot be long unkind : our Joseph's bowels yearn within
him, he cannot smother love long, it must break out at length.
Praise, praise with me, brother, and desire my acquaintance to
help me. I dare not conceal his love to my soul ; I wish you all
a part of my feast, that my Lord Jesus may be honored. I allow
you not to hide Christ's bounty to me, when ye meet with such as
know Christ.
Ye write nothing to me. What are the cruel mercies of the
prelates toward me ? The ministers of this town, as I hear, intend
that I shall be more strictly confined, or else transported, because
they find some people affect me. Grace be with you.
Yours, in the sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Nov. 21, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXIX.
TO MR. JOHN FERGUSHILL.
Reverend, and well-beloved in our Lord Jesus, — I must
still provoke you to write by my lines, whereat ye need not won-
1 The act or state of having academic degrees conferred,
2 Matters by-past. 3 Q,uarrel
28
434 Rutherford's letters.
der ; for the cross is full of talk, and speak it must, either good or
bad : neither can grief be silent.
I have no dittay ' nor indictment to bring against Christ's cross,
seeino- he hath made a friendly agreement betwixt me and it, and
we are in terms of love together. If my former miscarriages, and
my now silent Sabbaths, seem to me to speak wrath from the
Lord, I dare say, it is but Satan borrowing the use and loan of
my cowardly and feeble apprehensions, which start at straws. I
know that faith is not so faint and foolish as to tremble at every
false alarm ; yet I gather this out of it. Blessed are they who are
graced of God to guide a cross well, and that there is some art re-
quired therein. I pray God that I may not be so ill friendstead,'^
as that Christ my Lord should leave me to be my own tutor, and
my own physician. Shall I not think that my Lord Jesus, who
deserveth his own place very well, will take his own place upon
him as it becometh him, and that he will fill his own chair? for
in this is his office to comfort us, and those that are casten down,
in all their tribulations, (2 Cor. i. 4.) Alas ! I know that I am a
fool, to seek a hole or defect in Christ's way with my soul. If I
have not a stock to present to Christ, at his appearance, yet I
pray God, that I may be able, with joy, and faith, and constancy,
to show the Captain of my salvation, in that day, a bloody head,
which I received in his service. Howbeit my faith hang by a
small tack ^ and thread, I hope that the tack shall not break ; and,
howbeit my Lord get no service of me but broken wishes, yet I
trust that those will be accepted upon Christ's account. I have
nothing to comfort me, but that I say, " Oh ! will the Lord disap-
point an hungry on-waiter?" The smell of Christ's wine and
apples, which surpass the up-taking of dull sense, bloweth upon
my soul, and I get no more for the meantime. I am sure, that to
let a famishing body see meat, and give him none of it, is a double
pain ; our Lord's love is not so cruel, as to let a poor man see
Christ and Heaven, and never give him more for want of money
to buy : nay, I rather think Christ such fair market wares, as
buyers may have without money and without price. And thus I
know, that it shall not stand upon my w^ant of money : for Christ
upon his own charges must buy my wedding garment, and redeem
the inheritance which I have forfeited, and give his word for one
the like of me, who am not law-biding^ of myself Poor folks
must either borrow or beg from the rich ; and the only thing that
commendeth sinners to Christ, is extreme necessity and want.
Christ's love is ready to make and provide a ransom and money
for a poor body, who hath lost his purse : — " Ho, ye that have
no money, come, and buy," (Isa. Iv. 1,) — that is the poor man's
market.
Now, brother, I see that old crosses would have done nothing
to me ; and, therefore, Christ hath taken a new, fresh rod to me,
that seemeth to talk with my soul and make me tremble. I have
I Charge. 2 Befriended. 3 Stitch. * Able to stand law.
Rutherford's letters. 435
often more ado now with faith, when I lose my compass, and am
blown on a rock, than those who are my beholders, standing upon
the shore, are aware of. A counsel to a sick man is sooner given
than taken. " Lord, send the wearied man a borrowed bed from
Christ." I think often that it is after-supper with me, and I am
heavy. Oh, but I would sleep soundly, with Christ's left hand
under my head, and his right hand embracing me. The Devil
could not spill ' that bed. When I consider how tenderly Christ
hath cared for me in this prison, I think that he hath handled
me as the bairn that is pitied and bemoaned. I desire no more
till I be in Heaven, but such a feast and fill of Christ's love as I
would have ; this love would be fair and adorning passments,^
which would beautify and set forth my black, unpleasant cross.
I cannot tell, my dear brother, what a great load I would bear, if
1 had a hearty fill of the love of that lovely One, Christ Jesus.
Oh, if ^ ye would seek and pray for that to me ! I would give
Christ all his love-styles and titles of honor, if he would give me
but this ; nay, I would sell myself, if I could, for that love.
I have been waiting to see what friends of place and power
would do for us ; but when the Lord looseneth the pins of his
own tabernacle, he will have himself to be acknowledged as the
only builder up thereof; and, therefore, I would take back again
my hope, that I lent and laid in pawn in men's hands, and gave
it wholly to Christ. It is no time for me now to set up idols of
my own. It were a pity to give an ounce-weight of hope to any
besides Christ. I think him well worthy of all my hope, though
it were as weighty as both Heaven and earth. Happ}'^ were I if
I had anything that Christ would seek or accept of; but now,
alas ! I see not what service I can do to him, except it be to talk
a little, and babble upon a piece of paper, concerning the love of
Christ. I am often as if my faith were wadset,* so that I cannot
command it ; and then, when he hideth himself, I run to the
other extreme, in making each wing and toe of my case as big
as a mountain of iron ; and then misbeliefs can spin out an hell
of heavy and desponding thoughts ; then Christ seeketh law-
borrows ^ of my unbelieving apprehensions, and chargeth me to
believe his day-light at midnight. But I make pleas "> with Christ,
though it be ill my common ^ so to do. It were my happiness,
when I am in this house-of-wine, and when I find a feast-day, if
1 could " hearken, and hear for the time to come," (Isa. xlii. 23.)
But I see that we must be off our feet in wading a deep water ;
and then Christ's love findeth timous^ employment, at such a dead
lift as that ; and, besides, after broken brows, bairns learn to walk
more circumspectly. If I come to Heaven any way, howbeit like
a tired traveller, upon my Guide's shoulder, it is good enough for
those who have no legs of their own for such a journey. I never
1 Spoil. ' Stripes of lace sewed on clothes, ornaments.
3 Oh, that. < Alienated. s Erroneous faith.
6 Legal security from injury, obtained from one against whom the peace is sworn.
1 Controversies. ^ 111 becomes me. " Timely.
436 Rutherford's letters.
thought there had been need of so much w\esthng to win to the
top of that steep mountain, as now I find.
Wo is me for this broken and back-sliding- Church ; it is hke
an old bowing wall, leaning to the one side, and there are none
of all her sons who will set a prop under her. I know that I need
not bemoan Christ ; for he careth for his own honor more than I
can do; but who can blame me to be wo,' (if I had grace so to
be,) to see my Well-beloved's fair face spitted upon, and his own
crown plucked off his head, and the ark of God taken and car-
ried in the Philistines' cart, and the kine put to carry it which
will let it fall to the ground 7 The Lord put-to his own helping
hand ! I would desire you to prepare yourself for a fight with
beasts : ye will not get leave to steal quietly to Heaven, in Christ's
company, without a conflict and a cross.
Remember my bonds, and praise my Second, and Fellow-pris-
oner, Christ. Grace be with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCLXXX.
TO WILLIAM GLENDINNING.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — Your
case is unknown to me, whether ye be yet our Lord's prisoner at
Wigton, or not : however it be, I know that our Lord Jesus hath
been inquiring for you ; and that he hath honored you to bear his
chains, which is the golden end of his cross ; and so hath waled *
out a chosen and honorable cross for you. I wish you much joy
and comfort of it ; for I have nothing to say of Christ's cross but
mucli good ; I hope that my ill word shall never meet either Christ
or his sweet and easy cross. I know that he seeketh of us an
out-cast^ with this house of clay, this mother prison, this earth,
that we love full well ; and, verily, when Christ snuffeth ray can-
dle, and causeth my light to shine upward, it is one of my greatest
wonders, that dirt and clay hath so much court* with a soul not
made of clay ; and that our soul goeth out of kind so far as to
make an idol of this earth, such a deformed harlot, as that it
should wrong Christ of our love. How fast, how fast doth our
ship sail ! And how fair a wind hath time, to blow us off these
coasts, and this land of dying and perishing things ! and, alas !
our ship saileth one way, and fleeth ^ many miles in one hour, to
hasten us upon eternity ; and our love and hearts are sailing close
backover,^ and swimming towards ease, lawless pleasure, vain
honor, perishing riches, and to build a fool's nest, I know not
where, and to lay our eggs within the sea-mark, and fasten our
1 Grieved. 2 Selected. 3 Q,uarrel.
* Influence. s Flieth. « Backwards.
Rutherford's letters. 437
bits of broken anchors upon the worst ground in the world, this
fleeting and perishing hfe ; and in the mean while, time and tide
carry us upon another life, and there is daily less and less oil in
our lamps, and less and less sand in our watch-glass.' Oh, what
a wise course were it for us to look away from the false beauty of
our borrowed prison, and to mind, and eye, and lust for our coun-
try ! Lord, Lord, take us home !
And for myself: — I think, if a poor, weak, dying sheep seek for
an old dyke,'^ and the lee side of a hill, in a storm, I have cause
to long for a covert from this storm, in Heaven ; I know none
will take my room over my head there. But, certainly, sleepy
bodies would be at rest and a well-made bed, and an old crazed
bark at a shore, and a weary traveller at home, and a breathless
horse at the rink's^ end. I see nothing in tliis life but sin. and
the sour fruits of sin : and, oh, what a burden is sin ! And what
a slavery and miserable bondage is it, to be at the nod, and yeas
and nays, of such a lord-master as a body of sin ! Truly, when
I think of it, it is a wonder that Christ maketh not fire and ashes
of such a dry branch as I am. I would often lie down under
Christ's feet, and bid him trample upon me, when I consider my
guiltiness. But seeing he hath sworn that sin shall not loose his
unchangeable covenant, I keep house-room amongst the rest of
the ill-learned ■« bairns, and must cumber the Lord of the House,
with the rest, till my Lord take the fetters off legs and arms,
and destroy this body of sin, and make a hole or breach in this
cage of earth, that the bird may flee ^ out, and the imprisoned
soul be at liberty. In the mean time, the least imitation of Christ's
love is sweet, and the hope of marriage with the Bridegroom
holdeth me in some joyful on-waiting, that when Christ's summer-
birds shall sing upon the branches of the tree of life, I shall be
tuned by God himself, to help them to sing the home-coming of
our Well-beloved and his bride to their house together. When I
think of this, I think winters and summers, and years and days,
and time, do me a pleasure, that they shorten this untwisted and
weak thread of my life, and that they put sin and miseries by-
hand,^ and that they shall carry me to my Bridegroom in a clap.
Dear brother, pray for me, that it would please the Lord of the
vineyard to give me room to preach his righteousness again to the
great congregation.
Grace, grace be with you. Remember me to your wife.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
' Hour-glass. 2 Wall. 3 Course's. * Ill-bred.
5 Fly. 6 "Po put by-hand, quickly to despatch, as work, etc.
438 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCLXXXI.
for MARION MACK NAUGHT.
My dear, and well-beloved Sister, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. — I am well, honor to God. I have been before
a court set up within rae of terrors and challenges ;' but my sweet
Lord Jesus hath taken the mask otT his face, and said, " Kiss thy
fill ;" and I will not smother nor conceal the kindness of my King,
Jesus. He hath broken in upon the poor prisoner's soul like the
swelling of Jordan. I am bank and brim-full; a great, high
spring-tide of the consolations of Christ hath overflowed me. I
would not give my weeping for the Fourteen Prelates' laughter.
They have sent me here to feast with my King. His spikenard
casteth a sweet smell. The Bridegroom's love hath run away
with my heart; Oh, love, love, love! Oh, sweet are my royal
King's chains ! I care not for fire nor torture. How sweet were
it to me to swim the salt sea for my new lover, my second hus-
band, my first Lord ! I charge you in the name of God, not to
fear the wild beasts that entered into the vineyard of the Lord of
hosts ; the false prophet is the tail : God shall cut the tail from
Scotland. Take your comfort and droop not, despond not.
Pray for my poor flock : I would take a penance on my soul for
their salvation. I fear that the entering of a hireling upon ray
labors there, will cut off my life with sorrow. There I wrestled
with the Angel, and prevailed. Wood, trees, meadows, and hills,
are my witnesses, that 1 drew on a fair meeting betwixt Christ
and Anwoth.
My love to your husband, to dear Carlton, to my beloved brother
Knockbrex. Forget not Christ's prisoner. I long for a letter un-
der your own hand.
Your friend, and Christ's Prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, Nov. 22.
LETTER CCLXXXH.
TO THE LADY ROBERTLAND.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I shall be
glad to hear that your soul prospereth, and that fruit groweth
upon you after the Lord's husbandry and pains in his rod, that
hath not been a stranger to you from your youth. It is the Lord's
kindness that he will take the scum off us in the fire : who know-
eth how needful winnowing is to us, and what dross must betaken
away, ere we enter into the Kingdom of God ? So narrow is the
entry to Heaven, that our knots, our bunches, and lumps of pride,
' Self-accusations.
Rutherford's letters. 439
and self-love, and idol love, and world love, must be hammered off
us, that we may thring in,^ stooping low, and creeping through
that narrow and thorny entry.
And now, for myself: — I find it the most sweet and heavenly
life, to take up house and dwelling at Christ's fireside, and set
down my tent upon Christ, that Foundation-stone, which is sure
and faithful ground, and hard under foot. Oh, if^ I could win to'
it, and proclaim myself not the world's debtor, nor a lover obliged
to it ; and that I mind not to hire or bud^ this world's love any
longer ; but defy both the kindness and feud of God's whole crea-
tion whatsoever ; especially the lower vault and clay-part of God's
creatures, this vain earth ! For what hold 1 of his world ? A
borrowed lodging, and some years' house-room, and bread, and
water, and fire, and bed, and candle, etc., are all a part of the
pension of my King and Lord, to whom I owe thanks, and not to
a creature.
I thank God, that God is God, and Christ is Christ, and the
earth the earth, and the Devil the Devil, and the world the world,
and that sin is sin, and that everything is what it is : because he
hath taught me in my wilderness not to shuffle my Lord Jesus,
nor to intermix him with creature-vanities ; nor to spin or twine
Christ or his sweet love into one web, or into one thread with the
world, and the things thereof. Oh, if^ I could hold and keep
Christ all alone, and mix him with nothing ! Oh, if ^ I could cry
down the price and weight of my cursed self, and cry up the price
of Christ, and double, and triple, and augment and heighten to
millions the price and worth of Christ ! I am, if I durst speak so,
and might lawfully complain, so hungeredly tutored by Christ Je-
sus, my liberal Lord, that his nice love, which my soul would be
in hands with, flieth me ; and yet I am trained on to love Him,
and lust, and long, and die for his love whom I cannot see. It is
a w^onder to pine away with love for a covered and hid lover, and
to be hungered with his love, so as a poor soul cannot get his fill
of hunger for Christ. It is hard to be hungered of hunger, whereof
such abundance for other things is in the world. But sure if we
were tutors, and stewards, and masters, and lord-carvers of Christ's
love, we should be more lean, and worse fed than we are. Our
meat doeth us the more good that Christ keepeth the keys, and
that tlie wind and the air of Christ's sweet breathing, and of the
influence of his Spirit is locked up in the hands of the good pleas-
ure of Him who bloweth where he listeth.
I see that there is a sort of impatient patience required in the
want of Christ, as to his manifestations and waiting on. They
thrive who wait on his love, and the blowing of it, and the turn-
ing of his gracious wind ; and they thrive who in that on-waiting
make haste and din, and much ado, for their lost and hidden Lord
Jesus. However it be, God feed me with him any way. If he
would come in, I should not dispute the matter where he got a
» Press or squeeze in. 2 oh, that. ' Attain to. * Bribe.
440 Rutherford's letters.
hole, or how he opened the lock. I should be content that Christ
and I met, sujjpose he should stand on the other side of Hell's lake,
and cry to me, " Either put in your foot and come through, else ye
shall not have me at all." But what fools are we, in the taking up
of him and of his deahng ! He hath a gate ' of his own, beyond
the thoughts of men, that no foot hath skill to follow him. But
we are still ill scholars, and will go in at Heaven's gate, wanting the
half of our lesson, and shall still be bairns so long as we are under
time's hands, and till eternity cause a sun to arise in our souls that
shall give us wit. We may see how we spill ^ and mar our own
fair heaven and our salvation, and how Christ is every day putting
in one bone or other in those fallen souls of ours, into the right
place again ; and that, on this side of the New Jerusalem, we
shall still have need of forgiving and healing. I find crosses to be
Christ's carved Avork, that he marketh out for us ; and that with
crosses he figureth and portrayeth us to his own image, cutting
away pieces of our ill and corruption. "Lord, cut; Lord, carve;
Lord, wound; Lord, do anything that may perfect the Father's
image in us, and make us meet for glory."
Pray for me, — I forget not you, — that our Lord would be pleased
to lend me house-room, to preach his righteousness, and tell what
I have heard and seen of him. Forget not Zion that is now in
Christ's caums^ and in his forge. God bring her out new work.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jan. 4, 1638.
LETTER CCLXXXHL
TO MY LORD LOUDON.
Right honorable, and my very worthy Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. — Hearing of your Lordship's zeal and
courage for Christ our Lord, in owning his honorable cause, I am
bold, (and I plead pardon for it,) to speak on paper, by a line or
two, to your Lordship, (since I have not access in any other way,)
beseeching your Lordship, by the mercies of God, and by the ever-
lasting peace of your soul, and by the tears and prayers of our
Mother-church, to go on as ye have so worthily begun, in purging
the Lord's house in this land, and pulling down the sticks of An-
tichrist's filthy nest, this wretched prelacy, and that black king-
dom, whose wicked aims have ever been, and still are, to make this
fat world the only compass they would have Christ and religion to
sail by; and to mount up the Man of Sin, their godfather the
Pope of Rome, upon the highest stair of Christ's throne, and to
make a velvet church, (in regard of parliament grandeur and
worldly pomp, whereof always their stinking breath smelleth,) and
^ Way. 2 Spoil. 3 Moulds.
Rutherford's letters. 441
put Christ and truth in sackcloth and prison to eat the bread of
adversity, and drink the water of affliction. Half an eye of any,
not misted with the darkness of Antichristian smoke, may see it
thus in this land ; and now our Lord hath begun to awaken the
nobles and others, to plead for borne-down Christ and his weeping
Gospel.
My dear and noble Lord, the eye of Christ is upon you ; the
eyes of many noble, many holy, many learned and worthy ones,
in our neighbor churches about, are upon you. This poor Church,
your Mother and Christ's spouse, is holding up her hands and
heart to God for you, and doth beseech you Avith tears, to plead
for her Husband, his kingly sceptre, and for the liberties that her
Lord and King hath given to her as to a free Kingdom, that oweth
spiritual tribute to none on earth, as being the free-born Princess
and Daughter to the King of kings. This is a cause that, before
God, his angels, the world, before sun and moon, needeth not to
blush. Oh, what glory and true honor is it, to lend Christ your
hand and service, and to be amongst the repairers of the breaches
of Zion's walls, and to help to build the old waste places, and
stretch forth the curtains, and strengthen the stakes of Christ's
tent in this land !
Oh, blessed are they, who, when Christ is driven away, will
bring him back again, and lend him lodging ! And blessed are
ye of the Lord ! Your name and honor shall never rot nor wither
in Heaven, (at least,) if ye deliver the Lord's sheep, that have been
scattered in the dark and cloudy day, out of the hands of strange
lords and hirelings, who with rigor and cruelty have caused
them to eat the pastures trodden upon with their foul feet, and to
drink muddy water ; and who have spun out such a world of
yards of indifferencies in God's worship, to make and weave a
web for the Antichrist, (which shall not keep any from the cold,)
as they mind nothing else, but that, by the bringing in of the
Pope's foul tail first upon us, (their wretched and beggarly cere-
monies,) they may thrust in after them the Antichrist's legs and
thighs, and his bell}'^, head, and shoulders ; and then cry down
Christ and the Gospel, and up the merchandise and wares of the
Great Whore. Fear not, my worthy Lord, to give yourself, and
all ye have, out for Christ and his Gospel. No man dare say,
who did ever thus hazard for Christ, that Christ paid him not his
hundred-fold in this life duly, and, in the life to come, life everlast-
ing. This is his own truth that ye now plead for; for God and
man cannot but commend you, to beg justice from a just prince
for oppressed Christ ; and to plead that Christ, who is the King's
Lord, may be heard in a free court to speak for himself, when the
standing and established laws of our nation can strongly plead
for Christ's crown in the pulpits, and his chair as Lawgiver in the
free government of his own house. But Christ will never be con-
tent and pleased with this land, neither shall his hot, fiery indig-
nation be turned away, so long as the Prelate (the man that lay
in Antichrist's foul womb, and the Antichrist's lord-bailiff,) shall
442 Rutherford's letters.
sit lord-carver in the courts of the Lord Jesus. The Prelate is
both the egg and the nest to deck' and bring forth Popery.
Plead, therefore, in Christ's behalf, for the plucking down of the
nest, and the crushing of the egg ; and let Christ's kingly office
suffer no more unworthy indignities. Be valiant for your royal
King, Jesus ; contend for him ; your adversaries shall be moth-
eaten worms, and die as men. Christ and his honor now lie on
your shoulders, let him not fall to the gronnd. Cast your eye-
upon Him who is quickly coming to decide all the controversies in
Zion. And remember that the sand in your night-glass ^ will run
out ; time with wings will flee away, eternity is hard upon you ;
and what will Christ's love-smiles, and the light of his lovely and
soul-delighting countenance be to you in that day, when God
shall take up in his right hand this little lodge of heaven, (like
as a shepherd lifteth up his little tent,) and fold together the two
leaves of this tent, and put the earth and all the plenishing' of it
into a fire, and turn this clay-idol, the god of Adam's sons, into
smoke and white ashes ! Oh, what hire, and how many worlds
would many then give to have a favorable decreet^ of the Judge?
or what moneys would they not give, to buy a mountain, to be a
grave above both soul and body, to hide them from the awesome^
looks of an angry Lord and Judge? I hope that your Lordship
thinketh upon this, and that ye mind loyalty to Christ, and to the
King both.
Now the very God of peace, — the only wise God, — establish and
strengthen you upon the Rock laid in Zion.
Your Lordship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jan. 4, 1638.
LETTER CCLXXXIV.
TO THE HONORABLE, REVEREND, AND WELL-BELOVED PRO-
FESSORS OF CHRIST AND HIS TRUTH IN SINCERITY, IN
IRELAND.
Dearly beloved in our Lord, and Partakers of the
HEAVENLY Calling, — -Gracc, mercy, and peace be to you, from
God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I always, but most of all now in my bonds, (most sweet bonds
for Christ my Lord,) rejoice to hear of your faith and love, and to
hear that our King, our Well-beloved, our Bridegroom, wulhout
tiring, stayeth still to woo you, as his wife ; and that persecutions,
and mockings of sinners have not chased away the Wooer from
the house.
I persuade you in the Lord, that the men of God, now scattered
and driven from you, put you upon the right scent and pursuit of
1 Hatch. 2 Hour-glass. s Furniture. * Sentence. s Awful.
Rutherford's letters. 443
Christ ; and, my salvation on it, (if ten heavens were mine,) if
this way, this way that I now suffer for, this way that the world
nicknameth and reproacheth, and no other way, be not the King's
gate ' to Heaven ; and I shall never see God's face, (and, alas, I
were a beguiled wretch if it were so !) if this be not the only sav-
ing way to Heaven. Oh, that you would take the word of a
prisoner of Christ for it, nay I know you have the greatest King's
word for it, that it shall not be your wisdom to speer" out another
Christ, or another way of worshipping him, than is now savingly
revealed to you. Therefore, though I never saw your faces, let
me be pardoned to write to you, ye honorable persons, ye faith-
ful pastors, yet amongst the flocks, and ye sincere professors of
Christ's truth, or any weak, tired strayers, who cast but half an
eye after the Bridegroom, if possibly I could, by any weak experi-
ence, confirm and strengthen you in this good way, everywhere
spoken against. I can with the greatest assurance, (to the honor
of our highest and greatest, and dearest liOrd, let it be spoken.)
assert, (though I be but a child in Christ, and scarce able to walk
but by a hold, and the meanest, and less than the least of saints,)
that we do not come nigh, by twenty degrees, to the due love and
estimation of that Fairest amongst the sons of men. For if it
were possible that Heaven, yea, ten heavens, were laid in the bal-
ance with Christ, I would think the smell of his breath above
them all. Sure I am that he is the far best half of Heaven ;
yea, he is all Heaven, and more than all Heaven ; and my testi-
mony of him is, that ten lives of black sorrow, ten deaths, ten
hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimstone, and all exquisite torments,
were all too little for Christ, if our suffering could be a hire to buy
him ; and, therefore, faint not in your sufferings and hazards for
him. I proclaim and cry. Hell, sorrow, and shame upon all lusts,
upon all by-lovers ^ that would take Christ's room over his head,*
in this little inch of love, of these narrow souls of ours, that is due
to sweetest Jesus. O highest, O fairest, O dearest Lord Jesus,
take thine own from all bastard lovers. Oh, that we could wad-
set^ and sell all our part of time's glory, and time's good things,
for a lease and tack^ of Christ for all eternity ! Oh, how are we
misted '^ and mired with the love of things that are on this side of
time, and on this side of death's water ! Where can we find a
match to Christ, or an equal, or a better than he, among created
things? Ob, this world is out of all conceit, and all love with our
Well-beloved ! Oh, that I could sell my laughter, joy, ease, and
all for him ; and be content with a straw bed, and bread by
weight, and water by measure, in the camp of our weeping
Christ! I know that his sackcloth and ashes are better than the
fool's laughter, which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot.
I Way. 2 7\) speer out, to find out by diligent inquiry. 3 Paramours.
* To take a house, farm, etc., over a tenants head, to offer more for it than the ade-
quate rent which the tenant gives, and thus to put liim out.
5 To wadset, to alienate, under a right of reversion, applied to heritable property.
* A lease. "^ Bewildered.
444 Rutherford's letters.
But, alas ! we do not harden our faces against the cold north
storms which blow upon Christ's fair face. We love well summer
religion, and to be that which sin has made us, even as thin skin-
ned as if we were made of white paper ; and would fain be car-
ried to Heaven in a close-covered chariot, wishing from our hearts
that Christ would give us surety, and his hand-write^ and his seal
for nothing but a fair summer, until we be landed in at Heaven's
gates.
How many of us have been here deceived, and have fainted in
the day of trial ! Amongst you there are some of this stamp. I
shall be sorry if my acquaintance A. T. hath left you : I will not
believe that he dare to stay from Christ's side. I desire that ye show
him this from me ; for I loved him once in Christ, neither can I
change my mind suddenly of him.
But the truth is, that many of you, and too many, also, of your
neighbor Church of Scotland, have been like a tenant that sitteth
mail-free 2 and knoweth not his holding^ whill his rights^ be
questioned. And now I am persuaded, that it will be asked at
every one of us, on what terms we brook^ Christ; for wehavesit-
ten long mail-free. We found Christ without a wet foot ; and he,
and his Gospel, came upon small charges to our doors : but now
we must wet our feet to seek him. Our evil manners, and the
bad fashions of a people at ease, from your youth, and like Moab,
not casten from vessel to vessel, (Jer. xlviii. 11.) have made us,
like standing waters, to gather a foul scum, and when we are
jumbled our dregs come up, and are seen. Many take but half
a grip« of Christ, and the wind bloweth them and Christ asunder.
Indeed, when the mast is broken and blown into the sea, it is an
art "< then to swim upon Christ to dry land. It is even possible
that the children of God, in a hard trial, lay themselves down as
hidden in the lee side of a bush whill Christ their Master be
taken, as Peter did ; and lurk there, whill the storm be overpast.
All of us know the way to a whole skin ; and the singlest heart
that is, hath a by-purse that will contain the denial of Christ, and
a fearful backsliding. Oh, how rare a thing it is to be loyal and
honest to Christ, when he hath a controversy with the shields of the
earth ! I wish all of you would consider, that this trial is from
Christ, it is come upon you unbought ; (indeed when we buy a
temptation with our own money, no marvel that we be not easily
free of it, and that God be not at our elbow to take it off' our hand ;)
this is Christ's ordinary house-fire* that he maketh use of, to try
all the vessels of his house withal. And Christ now is about to
bring his treasure out before sun and moon, and to tell his money,
and in the telling to try what weight of gold, and what weight
of watered ° copper is in his house. Do not now jouk,'" or bow, or
' Assurance under one's hand. 2 Rent-free. 3 Tenure. < Title-deeds.
6 Possess, enjoy. 6 Gripe, firm hold. i Requires skill.
8 Fire that ordinarily burns in the house. 9 Plated with silver.
>" To jouk, to incline the body forward with a quick motion, in order to avoid a
stroke or an injury ; hence, to shift, to yield up principle to escape present evil.
Rutherford's letters. 445
yield to your adversaries in a hair-breadth. Christ and his truth
will not divide ; and his truth hath not latitude and breadth, that
ye may take some of it, and leave other some of it. Nay, the
Gospel is like a small ' hair, that hath no breadth, and will not
cleave in two. It is not possible to twist and compound a matter
betwixt Christ and Anticlirist ;2 and, therefore, ye must either be
for Christ, or ye must be against him. It was but man's wit,
and the wit of prelates and their godfather, the Pope, (that man
without law,) to put Christ and his prerogatives royal, and his
truth, or the smallest nail-breadth of his latter-will, in the new
Calendar of Indifferencies ; and to make a blank of uninked
paper in Christ's testament, that men may fill up ; and to shuffle
the truth, and matters which they call indifferent, through other;'
and spin both together, that Antichrist's wares may sell the better.
This is but the device and forged dream of men, whose consciences
are made of stoutness, and have a throat, that a graven image,
greater than the bounds of the Kirk door, would get free passage
into. I am sure that when Christ shall bring us all out in our
blacks and whites,^ at that day, when he shall cry down time,
and the world, and when the glory of it shall lie in white ashes,
like a May-flower cut down, and which hath lost the blossom,
there shall be few, yea none, that dare make any point which
toucheth the worship and honor of our King and Lawgiver, to be
indifferent. Oh, that this misled and blindfolded world would see
that Christ doth not rise and fall, stand or lie, by men's appre-
hensions ! What is Christ the lighter, that men do with him, by
open proclamation, as men do with clipped and light money?
They are now crying down Christ some grain-weights, and some
pounds or shillings ; and they will have him lie * for a penny or
a pound, for one or for a hundred, according as the wind bloweth
from the east or from the west ; but the Lord hath weighed him,
and balanced him already ; " This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased ; hear ye him :" his worth and his weight stand
still. It is our part to cry, "Up, up with Christ, and down, down
with all created glory before him." Oh, that I could heighten
him, and heighten his name, and heighten his throne ! I know,
and am persuaded, that Christ shall again be high and great in
this poor, withered, and sun-burnt Kirk of Scotland ; and that
the sparks of our fire shall fly over sea, and round about, to warm
you and other sister churches ; and that this tabernacle of David's
house, that is fallen, even the Son of David's waste places shall
be built again. And I know the prison, crosses, persecutions, and
trials of the two slain witnesses, that are now dead and buried,
(Rev. xi.) and of the faithful professors that have a back-door and
back-entry of escape ; and that death and Hell, and the world,
and tortures, shall all cleave and split in twain, and give us free
1 Slender.
2 That is, to twist it round them both so as to bind them together, or to compound
them together so as to make them unite. 3 Promiscuously.
* Evil and good deeds. s Be reckoned, stand for.
446 Rutherford's letters.
passage and liberty to go through toll-free: and we shall bring
all God's good metal out of the furnace again, and leave behind
us but our dross and our scum : we may then beforehand pro-
claim Christ to be victorious. He is crowned King in Mount
Zion : God did put the crown upon his head, (Psal. ii.,) and who
dare take it off again ? Out of question, he hath sore and grievous
quarrels against his Church : and, therefore, he is called, (Isa.
xxxi. 9,) " He whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in
Jerusalem." But when he hath performed his work on Mount
Zion, all Zion's haters shall be as the hungry and thirsty man,
that dreameth he is eating and drinking, and behold when he
awakeneth, he is faint, and his soul empty. And this advantage
we have also, that he will not bring before sun and moon all the
infirmities of his wife ; it is the modesty of marriage-anger or
husband-wrath, that our sweet Lord Jesus will not come with
chiding to the streets, to let all the world hear what is betwixt
him and us : his sweet glooms ^ stay under roof, and that because
he is God.
Two special things ye are to mind : 1. Try and make^ sure
your profession : that ye carry not empty lamps. Alas ! security,
security is the bane and the wrack ° of the most part of the world.
Oh, how many professors go with a golden lustre, and are gold-
like before men, (who are but witnesses to our white skin.) and
yet are but bastard and base metal ! Consider how fair before the
wind some do ply with up-sails and white, even to the nick^ of
illumination, (Heb. vi. 4, 5,) " And tasting of the heavenly gift ;
and a share and part of the Holy Ghost; and the tasting of the
good word of God, and the powers of the world to come ;" and
yet this is but a false nick of renovation, and, in a short time,
such are quickly broken upon the rocks, and never fetch the har-
bor, but are sanded^ in the bottom of Hell. Oh, make your haven
sure, and try how ye come by conversion ; that it be not stolen
goods, in a white and well-lustered profession ! A white skin over
old wounds maketh an under-coating conscience;'' false under-
water,' not seen, is dangerous, and that is a leek ^ and rift in the
bottom of an enlightened conscience, often falling, and sinning
against light. Woe, woe is me that the holy profession of Christ
is made a stage garment by many, to bring home a vain fame ;
and Christ is made to serve men's ends ; this is, as it were, to stop
an oven with a king's robes.
Know^ — 2. Except men martyr and slay the body of sin in
sanctified self-denial, they shall never be Christ's martyrs, and
faithful witnesses. Oh, if I could be master of that house-idol,
myself, my own, mine, my own will, wit, credit, and ease, how
blessed were 1 ! Oh, but we have need to be redeemed from our-
' Frowns.
2 Try to make sure. Atid, in the Scottish dialect, is often placed between a govern-
ing verb and its infinitive, instead oito, in English. 3 Destruction.
* Marli, degree. s Stranded.
s Festering under the coat or skin which has been brought over the wound by its
having been too hastily healed. — (Jer. vi. 14.) "> Bilge-water. ^ Leak.
Rutherford's letters, 447
selves, rather than from the Devil and the world ! Learn to put
out yourselves, and to put in Christ for yourselves; it would make
a sweet bartering and niffering,' and give old for new, if I could
shuffle out self, and substitute Christ my Lord, in place of myself;
to say, "Not I, but Christ; not my will, but Christ's; not my
ease, not my lust, not my feckless^ credit, but Christ, Christ."
But, alas ! in leaving ourselves, in setting Christ before our idol,
self, we have yet a glaiked' back-look to our old idol. O wretched
idol, myself! when shall I see thee wholly decourted,* and Christ
wholly put in thy room ? Oh, if ^ Christ, Christ had the full place
and room of myself! that all my aims, purposes, thoughts, and de-
sires would coast and land upon Christ, and not upon myself! and,
howbeit we cannot attain to this denial of me and mine, that we can
say, "I am not myself, myself is not myself, mine own is no longer
mine own," yet our aiming at this in all we do shall be accepted ;
for, alas ! I think I shall die, but minting^ and aiming to be a Chris-
tian. Is it not our comfort, that Christ, the Mediator of the New
Covenant, is come betwixt us and God in the business, so that green
and young heirs, the like of sinners, have now a Tutor that is God ? —
And now, God be thanked, our salvation is bottomed on Christ ;
sure I am, the bottom shall never fall out of Heaven and happiness
to us ; I would give you over the bargain a thousand times, were it
not that Christ's free grace hath taken our salvation in hand.
Pray, pray and contend with the Lord, for your Sister-church ;
for it would appear that the Lord is about to speer for'' his scat-
tered sheep, in the dark and cloudy day. Oh, that it would
please our Lord to set up again David's old wasted and fallen tab-
ernacle in Scotland, that we might see the glory of the Second
Temple in this land. Oh, that my little heaven were wadset,^ to
redeem the honor of my Lord Jesus among the Jews and Gentiles.
Let never dew lie upon my branches, and let my poor flower
wither at the root, so that Christ were enthroned, and his glory
advanced in all the world, and especially in these Three King-
doms. But I know that he hath no need of me ; what can I add
to him? but oh, that he would cause his high and pure glory to
run through such a foul channel as I am ! and, howbeit he hath
caused the blossom to fall off my one poor joy, that was on this
side of Heaven, even my liberty to preach Christ to his people,
yet I am dead to that now, so that he would hew and carve glory,
glory for evermore, to my royal King, out of my silence and
sufferings. Oh, that I had my fill of his love ; but I know ill
manners make an unco* and strange Bridegroom.
I entreat you earnestly for the aid of your prayers, for I forget
not you ; and I salute with my soul in Christ, the faithful pastors,
and honorable and worthy professors in that land. Now the God
of peace, that brought again our Lord Jesus from the dead, the
great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the Everlasting
1 Exchanging. 2 Weak, worthless. 3 Giddy, foolish. < Discarded.
5 That. * Indicating, by signs, an intention to attempt. 7 Inquire after.
8 Alienated under a right of reversion. 9 Distant, reserved, cold.
448 Rutherford's letters.
Covenant, make you perfect in every good work, to do his will ;
working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweetest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 4, 1638.
LETTER CCLXXXV.
TO ROBERT GORDON, OF KNOCKBREX
My very dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto
you. — I thought to have answered your two letters on this occa-
sion, though I cannot say all that I would. Your tinious ^ word,
" not to delight in the cross, but in him who sweeteneth it," came
to me in due time. I find the consolations and off-fallings that
follow the cross of Christ so sweet, that I almost forget myself.
My desire and purpose is, when Christ's honeycombs drop, neither
to refuse to receive and feed upon his comforts, nor yet to make
joy my bastard-god, or my new-found heaven. But what shall I
say? Christ very often, in his sweet comforts, cometh unsent for,
and it were a sin to close the door upon him ; it is not unlawful to
love and delight in Christ's apples, when I am not dotingly wooing,
nor eagerly begging kisses ; but when they come clean from the
timber, (like kindness itself, that cometh of its own accord,) then
I cannot but laugh upon Him who laugheth upon me. If joy
and comforts come single and alone, without Christ himself, I
think I would send them back again the gate^ they came, and
not make them welcome ; but, when the King's train cometh, and
the King in the midst of the company, oh how I am overjoyed
with floods of love! I fear not, that too great spaits^ of love
wash away the growing corn, and loose my plants at the roots.
Christ doeth no skaith^ where he cometh ; but certainly, I would
wish such spiritual wisdom, as to love the Bridegroom better than
his gifts, his propines,^ or drink-money. I would be further in
upon Christ, thau at his joys. They but stand in the outer side
of Christ; I would wish to be in, as a seal upon his heart; in,
where his love and mercy lodgeth beside his heart. My Well-
beloved hath ravished me ; but it is done with consent of both
parties, and it is allowable enough. But, ray dear brother, ere I
part with this subject, I must tell you, that ye may lift up my
King in praises with me, Christ hath been keeping something
these fourteen years for me, that I have now gotten in ray heavy
days that I ara in for his name's sake ; even an opened coffer of
perfumed comforts, and fresh joys, coming new, and green, and
powerful, from the fairest, fairest face of Christ my Lord. Let the
sour law, let crosses, let Hell be cried down : love, love hath
shamed me from my old ways. Whether I have a race to run, or
» Seasonable. « Way. 3 Deluges. < Harm. 5 Presents.
Rutherford's letters. 449
some work to do, I see not ; but I think Christ seemeth to leave
Heaven (to say so,) and his court, and come down to laugh, and
play, and sport with a daft bairn.'
I am not thus plain with many I write to ; it is possible I be
misconstructed,^ and deemed to seek a name ; but my Witness
above knoweth that I seek to have a good name raised upon
Christ. I observe it to be our folly, to seek little from Christ,
because our four-hours^ may not be our supper ; nor our propines*
sent by the Bridegroom our tocher-good ;5 nor our earnest our
principal sum. But I trow that few of us know how much may
be had of Christ for a four-hours, ^ and a propine,* and an
earnest. We are like the young heir, who knoweth not the whole
bounds of his own lordship. Certainly, it is more than my part
to say, " O sweetest Lord Jesus, what, howbeit I were split and
broken into five thousand shreds or bits of clay, so being that
every shred had a heart to love thee, and every one as many
tongues as there are in Heaven, to sing praises to thee, before men
and angels for evermore !" Therefore, if my sufferings cry good-
ness, and praise, and honor upon Christ, my stipend is well paid.
Each one knoweth not what a life Christ's love is. Scaur ^ not
at suffering for Christ ; for Christ hath a chair, and a cushion,
and sweet peace for a sufferer : Christ's trencher from the first
mess of the high table is for a sinful witness. Oh, then, brother,
who but Christ ! who but Christ ! Hold your tongue of lovers,
where he cometh out. O all flesh, O dust and ashes, O angels, O
glorified spirits, O all the shields of the world, be silent before
him, come hither, and behold our Bridegroom, stand still and
wonder for evermore at him ! Why cease we to love and wonder,
to kiss and adore him? It is a hard matter, that days lie betwixt
him and me, and hold us asunder. Oh, how long, how long !
Ob, how many miles are there to my Bridegroom's dwelling-house !
it is a pain to frisf^ Christ's love any longer. But, it may be, that
a drunken man lose his feet, and miss a step. Ye write to me,
"hall-binks^ are slippery." I do not think my dawting^ world
will still last, and that feasts will be my ordinary food : I would
have humility, patience, and faith to set down both my feet, when
I come to the north side of the cold and thorny hill. It is ill my
common'" to be sweer " to go an errand for Christ, and to take the
wind upon my face for him. Lord, let me never be a false witness,
to deny that I saw Christ take the pen in his hand, and subscribe
my writes.''^
My dear brother, ye complain to me that ye cannot hold sight
of me : but were I a footman, I would go at leisure ; but some-
times the King taketh me into his coach, and draweth me ^ and
then I outrun myself; but, alas, I am still a forlorn transgressor !
Oh, how unthankful ! I will not put you off your sense of dark-
' Foolish child. 2 Misconstrued. 3 Slight afternoon repast.
4 Present. 5 Marriage-portion. 6 Boggle.
' Postpone enjoyment of. ^ Seats in the hall, elevated places of dignity.
9 Fondling. " It ill becomes me. " Reluctant. 12 Charters.
450 Rutherford's letters.
ness ; but let me say this, " Who gave you proctor-fee, to speak
for the law, which can speak for itself, better than ye can do?" I
would not have you to bring your dittay' in your own bosom
with you to Christ.
Let the Old Man and the New Man be summoned before
Christ's white throne, and let them be confronted before Christ,
and let each of them speak for themselves. I hope, howbeit the
New Man complain of his lying among pots, which maketh the
believer look black, yet he can also say, " I am comely as the
tents of Kedar." Ye shall not have my advice not to bemoan
your deadness ; but I find by some experience, which ye knew
before I knew Christ, that it suiteth not a ransomed man of
Christ's buying, to go and plea "^ for the sour law, our old forcasten ^
husband ; for we are now not under the law, (as a covenant,) but
under grace. Ye are in no man's common,* but Christ's ! I
know that he bemoaneth you more than you do yourself; I say
this, because I am wearied of complaining. I thought it had
been humility to imagine that Christ was angry with me, both
because of my dumb Sabbaths, and my hard heart : but I feel
now nothing but aching wounds : my grief, whether I will or not,
swelleth upon me ; but let us die in grace's hall-floor, pleading
before Christ. 1 deny nothing that the Mediator will challenge ^
me of; but I turn it all back upon himself Let him look his own
old accounts, if he be angry, for he will get no more of me.
When Christ saith, " I want repentance," I meet him with this,
" True Lord ; but thou art made a King and a Prince to give me
repentance," (Acts v. 3L) When Christ bindeth a challenge*
upon us, we must bind a promise back upon him. Be wo '' and
lay yourself in the dust before God, (which is suitable ;) but with-
al let Christ take the payment in his own hand, and pay him-
self off the first end of his own merits, else he will come behind
for anything that we can do. I am every way in your case, as
hard-hearted and dead as any man ; but yet I speak to Christ
through my sleep. Let us then proclaim a free market for Christ,
and swear ourselves bare,^ and cry on him, to come without money
and buy us, and take us home to our Ransom-payer's fire-side,
and let us be Christ's free-boarders : because we dow^ not pay the
old, we may not refuse to take on Christ's new debt of mercy:
let us do our best, Christ will still be behind ^^ with us. and many
terms will run together. For my part, let me stand for evermore
in his book, as a forlorn dyvour." I most desire to be thus far in
his common '^ of new, as to kiss his feet : I know not how to win ^^
to a heartsome '* fill and feast of Christ's love ; for I dow '^ neither
buy, nor beg, nor borrow, and yet I cannot want it — I dow '^ not
* Indictment. 2 Sue at law. 3 Abandoned.
* Under obligation to no man. s Accuse. 6 Accusation.
' Grieved. 8 Take the bankrupt's oath, that we are not worth anything.
9 Are not able to. '" Not have received all his due.
11 A bankrupt. 12 Under obligation to him. " Attain.
M Hearty. is Am not able to.
Rutherford's letters. 461
want it. Oh, if I could praise him ! yea, I would rest content
with a heart submissive and dying of love for him ; and, howbeit
I never win • personally in at Heaven's gates, oh, would to God !
I could send in my praises to my incomparable Well-beloved, or
cast my love-songs of that matchless Lord, Jesus, over the walls,
that they might light in his lap, before men and angels !
Now, grace, grace be with you. Remember my love to your
wife and daughter, and brother John.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 11, 1638.
LETTER CCLXXXVL
to the parishioners of kilmalcolm.
Worthy, and well-beloved in Christ Jesus our Lord,
— Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — Your letters could not
come to my hand in a greater throng of business than I am now
pressed with at this time, when our Kirk requireth the public
help of us all ; yet I cannot but answer the heads of both your
letters, with provision that ye choose, after this, a fitter time for
writing, i. I would not have you to pitch upon me, as the man
able by letters to answer doubts of this kind, while there are in
your bounds men of such great parts, most able for this work. 1
know that the best are unable ; yet it pleaseth that Spirit of Jesus,
to blow his sweet wind through a piece of dry stick, that the
empty reed may keep no glory to itself; but a minister can make
no such wind as this to blow, he is scarce able to lend it a pas-
sage to blow through him. 2. Know that the wind of this Spirit
hath a time, when it bloweth sharp, and pierceth so strongly, that
it would blow through an iron door; and this is commonly rather
under suffering for Christ, than at any other time. Sick children
get of Christ's pleasant things, to play them withal, because
Jesus is most tender of the sufferer, for he was a sufferer himself.
Oh, if 2 I had but the leavings and the drawing of the by-board '
of a sufferer's table ! But I leave this to answer yours.
L Ye write, That God's vows are lying on you ; and security,
strong, and sib* to nature, stealing on you who are weak. I an-
swer,— I. Till we be in Heaven, the best have heavy heads, as is
evident, (Cant. v. 1 ; Psal. xxx. 6; Job xxix. 18; Matth. xxvi.
33.) Nature is a sluggard, and loveth not the labor of religion ;
therefore, rest should not be taken, till we know that the disease
is over, and in the way of turning, and that it is like a fever past
the cool : and the quietness and the calms of the faith of victory
over corruption, should be entertained in the place of security; so
that if I sleep, I should desire to sleep faith's sleep in Christ's
bosom. 2. Know also, that none who sleep sound can seriously
» Get. 2 Oh, that. 3 Side-table, * Akin.
498 Rutherford's letters.
complain of sleepiness. Sorrow for a slumbering soul, is a token
of some watchfulness of spirit ; but this is soon turned into wan-
tonness, as grace in us too often is abused ; therefore, our waking
must be watched over, else sleep will even grow out of watching;
and there is as much need to watch over grace, as to watch over
sin : full men will soon sleep, and sooner than hungry men.
3. For your weakness to keep off security, that like a thief
stealeth upon you, I would say two things :— 1. To want com-
plaints of weakness, is for Heaven, and angels that never sinned,
not for Christians in Christ's camp on earth. I think that our
weakness maketh us the Church of the redeemed ones, and
Christ's field that the Mediator should labor in. If there were no
diseases on earth, there needeth no physicians on earth. If
Christ had cried down weakness, he might have cried down his
own calling ; but weakness is our Mediator's world ; sin is Christ's
only, only fair and market. No man should rejoice at weakness
and diseases ; but I tiiink that we may have a sort of gladness
at boils and sores, because, without them, Christ's fingers, as a
slain Lord, would never have touched our skin. I dare not thank
myself, but I dare thank God's depth of wise providence, that I
have an errand in me, while I live, for Christ to come and visit
me, and bring with him his drugs and his bahn. Oh, how sweet
is it for a sinner to put his weakness into Christ's strengthening
hand, and to father a sick soul upon such a physician, and to lay
weakness before him, to weep upon him, and to plead and pray !
Weakness can speak and cry, when we have not a tongue ; (Ezek.
xvi. 6,) "And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in
thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood,
Live." The Kirk could not speak one word to Christ then : but
blood and guiltiness out of measure spake, and drew out of Christ
pity, and a word of life and love. 2. As for weakness, we have
it, that we may employ Christ's strength because of our weak-
ness. Weakness is to make us the strongest things ; that is,
when having no strength of our own, we are carried upon Christ's
shoulders, and walk as it were upon his legs : if our sinful weak-
ness swell up to the clouds, Christ's strength will swell up to the
sun, and far above the Heaven of Heavens.
II. Ye tell me, there is need of counsel for strengthening of
new beginners. I can say little to that, who am not well begun
myself: but 1 know that honest beginnings are nourished by Him,
even by lovely Jesus, who never yet put out a poor man's dim
candle, that is wrestling betwixt light and darkness. I am sure,
that if new beginners would urge themselves upon Christ, and
press their souls upon him, and importune him for a draught of his
sweet love, they could not come wrong to Christ. Come once in
upon the right nick ' and step of his lovely love, and I defy you
to get free of him again. If any beginners fall off Christ again,
and miss him, they never lighted upon Christ as Christ : it was
but an idol, like Jesus, which they took for him.
1 Notch, degree.
Rutherford's letters. 453
HI. Whereas ye complain of a dead ministry in your bounds ;
ye are to remember that the Bible among you is the contract of
marriage; and the manner of Christ's conveying his love to your
heart is not so absolutely dependent upon even lively preaching,
as that there is no conversion at all, no hfe of God, but that which
is tied to a man's lips : — the daughters of Jerusalem have done
often that which the watchmen could not do. Make Christ your
Minister. He can woo a soul at a dyke-side ^ in the field : he
needeth not us, howbeit the flock be obliged to seek him in the
shepherds' tents. Hunger of Christ's making may thrive, even under
stewards who mind not the feeding of the Hock. Oh, blessed soul,
that can leap over a man, and look above a pulpit up to Christ,
who can preach home to the heart, howbeit we were all dead and
rotten.
IV. So to complain of yourselves, as to justify God, is right ;
providing ye justify his Spirit in yourselves : for men seldom advo-
cate against Satan's work and sin in themselves, but against God's
work in themselves. Some of the people of God slander God's
grace in their souls, as some wretches use to do, who complain and
murmur of want. " I have nothing," say they ; " all is gone, the
ground yieldeth but weeds and windlestraws ;2 when as their fat
harvest, and their money in bank maketh them liars. But for my-
self, alas ! I think it is not my sin ; I have scarce wit to sin this
sin ; but I advise you to speak good of Christ for his beauty
and sweetness, and speak good of him for his grace to your-
selves.
V. Light remaineth, ye say, but ye cannot attain to painfulness.
See if this complaint be not booked in the New Testament ; and
the place, (Rom. vii. IS,) is like this : " To will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I know not." But every
one hath not Paul's spirit in complaining ; for often in us com-
plaining is but an humble backbiting and traducing of Christ's
new work in the soul. But for the matter of the complaint, I would
say, that the light of glory is perfectly obeyed in loving, and
praising, and rejoicing, and resting in a seen and known Lord :
but that light is not hereaway ^ in any clay body ; for while we
are here, light is in the most part broader and longer than our
narrow and feckless* obedience; but if there be light, with a fair
train and a great back, I mean, armies of challenging ^ thoughts,
and sorrow for coming short of performance in what we know and
see ought to be performed, then that sorrow for not doing is ac-
cepted of our Lord for doing. Our honest sorrow and sincere aims,
together with Christ's intercession, pleading that God would wel-
come that which we have, and forgive what we have not, must be
our life, till we be over the bound-road,^ and in the other country,
where the Law will get a perfect soul.
VI. In Christ's absence, there is, as ye write, a willingness to
use means, but heaviness after the use of them, because of the
1 Wall-side. ^ Withered, worthless grass. 3 In this present state.
* Worthless. s Accusing. 6 Boundary-line.
454 Rutherford's letters.
formal and slight performance. In Christ's absence, I confess, the
work heth behind ; but if ye mean absence of comfort, and absence
of sense of his sweet presence, I think that absence is Christ's try-
ing of us, not simply our sin against him ; therefore, howbeit
our obedience be not sugared and sweetened with joy, (which is
the sweetmeat bairns would still be at.) yet the less sense, and the
more willingness in obeying, the less formality in our obedience,
howbeit we think not so ; for I beUeve that many think obedience
formal and lifeless, except the wind be fair in the west, and sails
filled with joy and sense, till souls, like a ship fair before the wind,
can spread no more sail : but I am not of their mind, who think
so. But if ye mean, by absence of Chiist, the withdrawing of
his working grace, I see not how willingness to use means can be
at all under such an absence : therefore, be humbled for heaviness
in that obedience, and thankful for willingness ; for the Bridegroom
is busking 1 his spouse oftentimes, while she is half sleeping ; and
your liord is working and helping more than ye see. Also, I re-
commend to you heaviness for formality, and for lifeless deadness
in obedience. Be casten down, as much as ye will or can, for
deadness; and challenge^ that slow and dull carcase of sin, that
will neither lead nor drive, in your spiritual obedience. Oh, how
sweet to lovely Jesus are bills and grievances, given in against
corruption and the body of sin ! I would have Christ, in such a
case, fashed," (if I may speak so,) and deaved^ with our cries, as
ye see the Apostle doeth, (Rom. vii. 24,) " Oh, wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Pro-
testations against the law of sin in you, are law-grounds why sin
can have no law against you. Seek to have your protestations
discussed and judged, and then shall ye find Christ on your side
of it.
VII. Ye hold, that Christ must either have hearty service, or no
service at all. If ye mean that he will not half^ a heart,
or have feigned service, such as the hypocrites give him, I grant
you that, — Christ must have honesty or nothing, — but if ye mean,
he will have no service at all, where the heart draweth back in
any measure, I would not that were true, for my part of Heaven,
and all that I am worth in the world. If ye mind to walk to
Heaven, without a cramp or a crook, ^ I fear that ye must go your
lone.'' He knoweth our dross and defects ; and sweet Jesus pitieth
us, when weakness and deadness in our obedience is our cross, and
not our darling.
VIII. The Liar, as ye write, challengeth^ the work as formal ;
yet ye bless your Cautioner^ for the ground- work he hath laid,
and dare not say but ye have assurance in some measure. To
this I say ; — 1. It shall be no fault to save Satan's labor, and chal-
lenge ^ it yourselves, or at least examine and censure ; but beware
of Satan's ends in challenging, >° for he mindeth to put Christ and
* Decking.
2 Accuse.
3 Annoyed, pestered.
* Deafened.
5 Halve.
6 Halt.
' By yourselves alone.
8 Accuses.
9 Surety.
10 Accusing.
Rutherford's letters. 455
you at odds, 2. Welcome home faith in Jesus, who washeth still,
when we have defiled our souls, and made ourselves loathsome,
and seek still the blood of atonement for faults little or meikle.'
Know the gate^ to the well, and lie about it. 3. Make meikle^ of
assurance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed.
IX. Out-breakings, ye say, discourage you, so that ye know not,
if ever ye shall win^ again to such overjoying consolations of the
Spirit in this life, as formerly ye had ; and, therefore, a question
may be. If, after assurance and mortification, the children of God
be ordinarily fed with sense and joy? I answer, I see no incon-
venience to think it is enough, in a race, to see the gold at the
starting-place, howbeit the runners never get a view of it, till they
come to the rink's^ end : and that our wise Lord thinketh it fittest
that we should not always be fingering and playing with Christ's
apples. Our Well-beloved, I know, will sport and play with his
bride, as much as he thinketh will allure her to the rink's ^ end.
Yet I judge it not unlawful to seek renewed consolations, provid-
ing— 1. The heart be submissive, and content to leave the meas-
ure and timing of them to him. 2. Providing they be sought, to
excite us to praise, and strengthen our assurance, and sharpen our
desires after himself. 3. Let them be sought, not for our humors
or swelling of nature, but as the earnest of Heaven ; and I think
many do attain to greater consolations after mortification, than
ever they had formerly. But I know that our Lord walketh here
still by a sovereign latitude, and keepeth not the same way, as to
one hairbreadth, without a miss, toward all his children. As for
the Lord's people with you, I am not the man fit to speak to them.
I rejoice exceedingly, that Christ is engaging souls amongst you :
but I know that in conversion all the winning is in the first buying,
as we use to say ; for many lay false and bastard foundations, and
take up conversion at their foot, and get Christ for as good as half-
nothing, and had never a sick night for sin ; and this maketh loose
work. I pray you to dig deep. Christ's palace-work, and his new
dwelling, laid upon Hell felt and feared, is most firm : and Heaven,
grounded and laid upon such a hell, is surest work, and will not
wash away with winter storms. It were good that professors were
not like young heirs, that come to their rich estate long ere they
come to their wit ; and so is seen on it ; the tavern, and the cards,
and the harlots steal their ridges^ from them, ere ever they be
aware what they are doing. I know that a Christ bought with
strokes is sweetest. 4. I recommend to you conference and prayer
at private meetings : for warrant whereof, see Isa. ii. 3 ; Jer. 1. 4,
5; Hos. ii. 1, 2; Zech. viii. 20,21,22,23; Mai. iii. 16 ; Luke
xxiv. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 ; John xx. 19 ; Acts xii. 12 ; Col. iii. 16—
and iv. 6 ; Ephes. iv. 29 ; 1 Pet. iv. 10; 1 Thes. v. 14; Heb. iii.
13, and x. 25. Many coals make a good fire, and that is a part
of the communion of saints.
I must entreat you, and your Christian acquaintances in the
1 Great. 2 Road. 3 Much.
* Attain. * Race's. 6 Acres.
456 Rutherford's letters.
parish, to remember me to God in your prayers, and my flock and
ministry, and my transportation ' and removal from this place,
which I fear at this Assembly ; and be earnest with God for our
Mother-kirk. For want of time, I have put you all in one letter.
The rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, Aug. 5, IGoD.
LETTER CCLXXXVIL
TO THE VISCOUNTESS OP KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I know that ye
are near many comforters, and that the promised Comforter is
near-hand ' also; yet, because I found your Ladyship comfortable
to myself, in my sad days, which are not yet over my head, it is
my part, and more in many respects, (howbeit I can do little, God
knoweth, in that kind,) to speak to you in your wilderness lot.
I know, dear and noble Lady, that this loss of your dear child ^
came upon you, one piece and part of it after another; and that
ye were looking for it, and that now the Almighty hath brought
on you that which ye feared ; and that your Lord gave you law-
ful warning ; and I hope that for His sake who brewed and
masked * this cup in Heaven, ye will gladly drink, and salute and
welcome the cross. I am sure, that it is not your Lord's mind to
feed you with judgment and wormwood, and to give you waters
of gall to drink, (Ezek. xxxiv. 16 ; Jer. ix. 15.) I know that your
cup is sugared with mercy ; and that the withering of the bloom,
the flower, even the white and red of worldly joys, is for no other
end, than to buy out at the ground the reversion of your heart
and love. Madam, subscribe to the Almighty's will ; put your
hand to the pen, and let the cross of your Lord Jesus have your
submissive and resolute Amen. If ye ask and try whose this
cross is? I dare say that it is not all your own, the best half of it
is Christ's : then your cross is no born-bastard, but lawfully begot-
ten, it sprang not out of the dust, (Job v. 6.) If Christ and ye be
halvers of this suflering, and he say, " Half mine," what should
ail you? And I am here right upon the style of the word of
God, (Phil. iii. 10,) "The fellowship of Christ's sufferings," (Col.
i. 24,) " The remnant of the afflictions of Christ," (Heb. xi. 26,)
"The reproach of Christ." It were but to shift the comforts of
God, to say, " Christ had never such a cross as mine ; he had
never a dead child, and so this is not his cross, neither can he in
that meaning be the owner of this cross :" but I hope that Christ,
when he married you, married you and all the crosses and wo^
hearts that follow you : and the word maketh no exception. (Isa,
1 Translation. 2 At hand.
3 John, the second Viscount Kenmure, who died in 1639 ; Lady Kenmure's only son.
* Infused. 5 Grieved.
Rutherford's letters. 457
Ixiii. 9.) " In all their afflictions he was afflicted." Then Christ
bore tlie first stroke of this cross ; it rebounded off him upon you,
and ye get it at the second hand, and ye and he are halvers in it.
And I shall believe, for my part, that he mindeth to distil heaven
out of this loss, and all others the like ; for wisdom devised it,
and love laid it on, and Christ owneth it as his own, and putteth
your shoulder only beneath a piece of it. Take it with joy as no
bastard cross, but as a visitation of God well-born ; and spend the
rest of your appointed time, till your change come, in the work of
believing ; and let faith, that never yet made a lie to you, speak
for God's part of it, " He will not, he doth not make you a sea or
a whale-fish, that he keepeth you in ward," (Job vii. 12.) It may
be, that ye think not many of the children of God in such a hard
case as yourself; but what would ye thmk of some, who would
exchange afflictions, and give you to the boot ? but I know that
yours must be your own alone, and Christ's together.
I confess it seemed strange to me, that your Lord should have
done that which seemeth to ding ^ out the bottom of your com-
forts worldly ; but we see not the ground of the Almighty's sover-
eignty; '-he goeth by^ on our right hand, and on our left hand,
and we see him not." We see but pieces of the broken links of
the chains of his providence, and he coggeth' the wheels of his
own providence, that we see not. Oh, let the Former work his
own clay into what frame he pleaseth ! " Shall any teach the
Almighty knowledge ?" If he pursue dry stubble, who dare say,
" What doest thou ?" Do not wonder to see the Judge of the
world weave into one web, your mercies and the judgments of
the House of Kenmure. He can make one web of contraries.
But my weak advice, with reverence and correction, were for }'ou,
dear and worthy Lady, to see how far mortification goeth on, and
what scum the Lord's fire casteth out of you. I know, that ye
see your knottiness,^ since our Lord whiteth ^ and heweth, and
plaineth you ; and the glancing of the furnace is to let you see
what scum or refuse ye must want, and what froth is in nature,
that must be boiled out, and taken off in the fire of your trials.
I do not say, that heavier afflictions prophesy heavier guiltiness ;
A cross is often but a false prophet in this kind : but I am sure
that our Lord would have the tin, and the bastard metal in you
removed ; lest the Lord say, " The bellows are burnt, the lead is
consumed in the fire, the Founder melteth in vain," (Jer. vi. 29.)
And I shall hope, that grief will not so far smother your light,
as not to practise this so necessary a duty, to concur with him in
this blessed design. I would gladly plead for the Comforter's
part of it, not against you, madam, (for 1 am sure ye are not his
party,^) but against your grief, which will have its own violent
incursions in your soul: and I think it be not in your power to
1 Drive, knock. 2 Past.
3 To cog a wheel, lo place a stone or piece of wood wedgewise between the ground
and a wheel, to prevent it from moving. ■* KnarUness.
5 To white, to dress with a knife, to whittle. 6 Opposing party.
458 Rutherford's letters.
help it. But I must say, there are comforts allowed upon you ;
and, therefore, want them not. When ye have gotten a running-
over soul with joy now, that joy will never be missed out of the
Infinite Ocean of delight, which is not diminished by drinking at
it, or drawing out of it. It is a Christian art to comfort yourself
in the Lord ; to say, " I was obliged to render back again this
child to the Giver : and if I have had four years' loan of him,
and Christ eternity's possession of him, the Lord hath kept con-
dition with me: if my Tjord would not have him and me to tryste *
both in one hour at death's door-threshold together, it is his wis-
dom so to do, I am satisfied : my tryste^ is suspended, not broken
off, nor given up." Madam, I would that I could divide sorrow
with you, for your ease ; but I am but a beholder, it is easy to me
to speak ; the God of comfort speak to you, and allure with his
feasts of love. My removal from my flock, is so heavy to me, that
it maketh my hfe a burden to me ; I had never such a longing
for death. The Lord help and hold up sad clay.
I fear that ye sin in drawing Mr. William Dalgleish from this
country, where the laborers are few, and the harvest great.
Madam, desire my Lord Argyll to see for provision to a pastor
for this poor people. Grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Kirkcudbright, Oct. 1, 1639.
LETTER CCLXXXVIII.
to the persecuted church in ireland.
Much honored, Rev., and dearly beloved in our Lord,
— Grace, mercy, and peace be to you all. — I know that there are
many in this nation more able than I to speak to the sufferers for,
and witnesses of Jesus Christ ; yet pardon me to speak a little to
you who are called in question for the Gospel once committed to
you.
I hope that ye are not ignorant, that as peace was left to you in
Christ's testament, so the other half of the testament was a legacy
of Christ's sufferings, (John xvi. 33.) " These things have I
spoken, that in me ye might have peace; in the world ye shall
have trouble." Because, then, ye are made assigns and heirs to a
life-rent of Christ's cross, think that fiery trial no strange thing :
for the Lord Jesus shall be no loser by purging the dross and tin
out of his Church in Ireland : — his wine-press is but squeezing out
the dregs, the scum, the froth, and refuse of that Church. I had
once the proof of the sweet smell, and the honest and honorable
peace, of that slandered thing the cross of our Lord Jesus : but
though, alas ! these golden days that then I had, be now in a great
part gone ; yet I dare say, that the issue and outgate^ of your suf-
* Meet by appointment. 2 Appointment to meet. ^ Egress.
Rutherford's letters. 459
ferings shall be the advantage, the golden reign and dominion of
the Gospel, and the high glory of the never-enough-praised Prince
of the kings of the earth, and the changing of the brass of the
Lord's temple among you into gold, and the iron into silver, and
the wood into brass. Your officers shall yet be peace, and your
exactors righteousness, (Isa. Ix. 17, 18 ;) your old, fallen walls
shall get a new name, and the gates of your Jerusalem shall get
a new style ; they shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates,
Praise. I know that Deputy, prelates. Papists, temporizing lords,
and proud mockers of our Lord, crucifiers of Christ for his coat,
and all your enemies, have neither fingers nor instruments of war
to pick out one stone out of your wall ; for each stone of your
wall is "Salvation." I dare give you my royal and princely Mas-
ter's word for it, that Ireland shall be a fair bride to Jesus, and
Christ will build on her a palace of silver, (Cant. viii. 9.) There-
fore, weep not as if there were no hope ; fear not, put on strength,
put on your beautiful garments, (Isa. lii. 1 ;) your foundation shall
be sapphires, your windows and gates precious stones, (Isa. liv. 11,
12.) Look over the water, and behold and see, who is on the dry-
land waiting for your landing. Your deliverance is concluded, '
subscribed and sealed in Heaven. Your goods that are taken
from you, for Christ and his truth's sake, are but arrested and laid
in pawn, and not taken away. There is much laid up for you in
His storehouse whose the earth and the fulness thereof is : your
garments are spun, and your flocks are feeding in the fields, your
bread is laid up for you, your drink is brewn,^ your gold and sil-
ver is at the bank, and the interest goeth on and groweth : and
yet I hear, that your task-masters do rob and spoil you, and fine
you. Your prisons, my brethren, have two keys. The Dep-
uty, prelates and officers keep but the iron keys of the prison,
wherein they put you : but He that hath created the smith, hath
other keys in Heaven; therefore, ye shall not die in the prison : —
other men's ploughs are laboring for your bread, your enemies are
gathering in your rents. He that is kissing his bride on this side
of the sea in Scotland, is beating her beyond the sea in Ireland,
and feeding her with the bread of adversity and the water of afflic-
tion ; and yet he is the same Lord to both.
Alas ! I fear that Scotland be undone, and slain with this great
mercy of reformation, because there is not here that life of re-
ligion, answerable to the huge greatness of the work, that dazzleth
our eyes. For the Lord is rejoicing over us in this land, as the
bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride : and the Lord hath chano-ed
the name of Scotland; they call us now no more "Forsaken,"
nor " Desolate," but our land is called " Hephzibah," and " Beu-
lah," (Isa. Ixii. 4,) for the Lord delighteth in us, and this land is
married to himself. There is now an highway made through our
Zion. and it is called the "Way of holiness;" the unclean shall
not pass over it: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err
in it : the wilderness doth rejoice and blossom as the rose ; " The
1 Brewed.
460 Rutherford's letters.
ransomed of the Lord are returned back unto Zion, with songs
and everlasting joy upon their heads," (Isa. xxxv. 10 :) the Canaan-
ite is put out of our Lord's house ; there is not a beast left to do
hurt, (at least, professedly,) in all the Holy Mountain of the Lord.
Our Lord is fallen ' to wrestle with his enemies, and hath brought
us out of Egypt; we have "the strength of an unicorn," (Num.
xxiii. 22.) The Lord hath eaten up the sons of Babel ; he hath
broken their bones, and hath pierced them through with his ar-
rows ; we take them captives whose captives we were, and we
rule over our oppressors, (Isa. xiv. 2.) It is not brick, nor clay,
nor Babel's cursed timber and stones, that is in our second
temple ; but our princely King Jesus is building his house all
palace-work and carved stones : — it is the habitation of the Lord.
We do welcome Ireland and England to our Well-beloved.
We invite you, O Daughters of Jerusalem, to come down to our
Lord's garden, and seek our Well-beloved with us ; for his love
will suffice both you and us. We do send you love-letters over
the sea, to request you to come and to marry our King, and to
take part of our bed ; and we trust our Lord is fetching a blow
upon the Beast, and the scarlet-colored Whore, to the end that he
may bring in his ancient Widow-wife, our dear sister, the Church
of the Jews. Oh, what a heavenly heaven were it to see them
come in by this mean, and suck the breasts of their little sister,
and renew their old love with their first Husband, Christ our
Lord ! They are booked in God's word, as a bride contracted
upon Jesus ! Oli, for a sight, in this flesh of mine, of the proph-
esied marriage between Christ and them! The kings of Tarsh-
ish, and of the Isles must bring presents to our Lord Jesus, (Psal.
Ixxii. 10.) And Britain is one of the chiefest isles ; why then
but we may believe, that our kings of this Island shall come in,
and bring their glory to the New Jerusalem, wherein Christ shall
dwell in the latter days? It is our part to pray, "That the king-
doms of the earth may become Christ's."
Now I exhort you in the Lord Jesus, not to be dismayed nor
afraid for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, the fierce
anger of the Deputy with civil power, and of the bastard prelates
with the power of the Beast ; for they shall be cut off. They may
well eat you and drink you, but they shall be forced to vomit you
out again alive. If two things were firmly believed, sufferings
would have no weight. If the fellowship of Christ's sufferings
were well known, who would not gladly take part with Jesus?
For Christ and we are halvers and joint owners of one and the
same cross : and, therefore, he that knew well what sufferings
were, as he esteemed all things but loss for Christ, and did judge
them but dung, so did he also judge of them, that he might know
the fellowship of his sufferings, (Phil. iii. 10.) Oh, how sweet a
sight is it, to see a cross betwixt Christ and us ; to hear our Re-
deemer say, at every sigh, and every blow, and every loss of a be-
liever, " Half mine !" So they are called, " The sufferings of
1 Has betaken himsel£
Rutherford's letters. 461
Christ," and, " The reproach of Christ," (Col. i. 24 ; Heb. xi. 26.)
As when two are partners and owners of a ship, the half of the
gain and half of the loss belong to each of the two ; so Christ in
our sufferings is half-gainer and half-loser with us; yea, the
heaviest end of the black tree of the cross lietli on your Lord ; it
falleth first upon him, and it but reboundeth off him upon you;
"Tile reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon
me," (Psal. Ixix. 9.) Your sufferings are your treasure, and are
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, (Heb. xi. 26.) And, if
your cross come through Christ's fingers ere it come to you, it re-
ceiveth a fair lustre from him, it getteth a taste and relish of the
King's spikenard, and of Heaven's perfume ; and the half of the
gain, when Christ's shipful of gold cometh home, shall be yours.
It is an augmenting of your treasure to be rich in sufferings, " to
be in labors abundant, in stripes above measure," (2 Cor. xi. 23 ;)
and to have the sufferings of Christ abounding in you, (2 Cor. i.
5,) is a part of Heaven's stock. Your goods are not lost which
they have plucked from you, for your Lord hath them in keeping ;
they are but arrested and seized upon, he shall loose the arrest.
Ye shall be fed with the heritage of Jacob, your father ; for the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, (Isa. Iviii. 14.)
Till I shall be on the hall-floor of the highest palace, and get a
draught of glory out of Christ's hand, above and beyond lime, and
beyond death, I shall never (it is like) see fairer days, than 1 saw
under that blessed tree of my Lord's cross. His kisses then were
king's kisses. Those kisses were sweet and soul-reviving ; one of
them, at the same time, was worth two and a half, (if I may
speak so,) of Christ's week-days kisses. Oh, sweet, sweet for ever-
more, to see a rose of Heaven growing in as ill-ground as Hell ;
and to see Christ's love, his embracements, his dinners and sup-
pers of joy, peace, faith, goodness, long-suffering, and patience,
growing and springing, like the flowers of God's garden, out of
such stony and cursed ground as the hatred of the prelates, and
the malice of their High Commission, and the Antichrist's bloody
hand and heart ! Is not here art and wisdom ? Is not here
Heaven indented in Hell, (if I may say so,) like a jewel set with
skill in a ring with the enamel of Christ's cross ? — the ruby and
riches of glory, that groweth up out of the cross, are beyond tell-
ing. Now the blackest and hottest wrath and most fiery and all-
devouring indignation of the Judge of men and angels, shall come
upon them who deny our sweet Lord Jesus, and put their hand to
that oath of wickedness now pressed. The Lord's coal at their
heart shall burn them up both root and branch. The estates of
great men that have done so, if they do not repent, shall consume
away, and the ravens shall dwell in their houses, and their glor}"
shall be shame. Oh, for the Lord's sake ! keep fast by Christ,
and fear not man that shall die, and wither as the grass. The
Deputy's bloom shall fall, and the prelates shall cast their flower,
and the east wind of the Lord, of "' the Lord strong and mighty,"
shall blast and break them ; therefore, fear them not : they are
462 Rutherford's letters.
but idols, that can neither do evil nor good. Walk not in the
way of those people that slander the footsteps of our royal and
princely, anointed King Jesus, now riding upon his white horse in
Scotland. Let Jehovah be your fear. That decree of Zion's de-
liverance, passed and sealed up before the throne, is now ripe and
shall bring forth a child, even the ruin and fall of the black king-
dom, and the Antichrist's throne, in these Kingdoms. The Lord
hath begun, and he shall make an end. Who did ever hear the
like of this ! Before Scotland travailed, she brought forth ; and
before her pain came, she was delivered of a man-child, (Isa.
Ixvi. 7, 8.)
And when all is done, suppose there were no sweetness in our
Lord's cross, yet it is sweet for his sake, for that lovely One, Jesus
Christ ; whose crown and royal supremacy is the question this
day in Great Britain, betwixt us and our adversaries — and who
would not think Him worthy of the suffering for? What is burn-
ing quick? what is drinking of our own heart's-blood ? and what
is a draught of melted lead for his glory? Less than a draught
of cold water to a thirsty man. if the right price and due value were
put on that worthy, worthy Prince, Jesus. Oh, who can weigh
him ! Ten thousand thousand heavens would not be one scale,
or the half of the scale of the balance to lay him in. Oh, black
angels, in comparison of him ! Oh, dim, and dark, and lightless
sun, in regard of that fair Sun of righteousness! Oh, feckless'
and worthless Heavens of heavens, when they stand beside ray
worthy, and lofty, and high and excellent Well-beloved ! Oh,
weak, and infirm clay-kings ! Oh, soft, and feeble mountains of
brass, and weak created strength, in regard of our miglity and
strong Lord of armies ! Oh, foolish wisdom of men and angels,
when it is laid in the balance beside that spotless, substantial
Wisdom of the Father ! If Heaven and earth, and ten thousand
heavens, even round about these heavens that now are, were all
in one paradise, decked with all the roses, flowers, and trees that
can come forth from the art of the Almighty himself; yet set but
our one Flower, that groweth out of the root of Jesse, beside that
orchard of pleasure, one look of him, one view, one taste, one
smell of his Godhead, would infinitely exceed and go beyond the
smell, color, beauty, and loveliness of that paradise. Oh, to be
with child of his love ! and to be suffocated, (if that could be,)
with the smell of his sweetness, were a sweet fill and a lovely
pain. Oh, worthy, worthy loveliness. Oh, less of the creatures,
and more of Thee ! Oh, open the passage of the Well of love
and glory on us, dry pits and withered trees ! Oh, that Jewel
and Flower of Heaven ! If our Beloved were not mistaken by
us, and unknown to us, he would have no scarcity of wooers and
suitors ; he would make Heaven and earth both see, that they can-
not quench liis love, for his love is a sea : — Oh, to be a thousand
fathoms' deep in this sea of love ! He, he himself, is more excel-
lent than Heaven ; for heaven, as it cometh into the souls and
1 Unsubstantial, unsatisfactory.
Rutherford's letters. 463
spirits of the glorified, is but a creature ; and he is something, and
a great Something, more tlian a creature. Oh, what a hfe were
it, to sit beside this Well of love, and drink and sing, and sing and
drink ; and then to have desires and soul-faculties stretched and
extended out many thousand fathoms in length and breadth, to
take in seas and rivers of love !
I earnestly desire to recommend this love to you, that this love
may cause you to keep his commandments, and to keep clean
fingers, and make clean feet, that ye may walk as the redeemed
of the Lord. Woe, woe be to them that put on his name, and
\ shame this love of Christ with a loose and profane life : their feet,
tongue, and hands, and eyes, give a shameless lie to the holy
Gospel, which they profess. I beseech you in the Lord, to keep
Christ, and walk with him : let not his fairness be spotted and stained
by godless living. Oh, who can find in their heart to sin against
love? and such a love as the glorified in Heaven shall delight to
dive into, and drink of forever: — for they are evermore drinking
in love, and the cup is still at their head, and yet without loathing ;
for they still drink, and still desire to drink forever and ever. Is
not this a long-lasting supper?
Now, if any of our country-people, professing Christ Jesus, have
brought themselves under the stroke and wrath of the Almighty,
by yielding to Antichrist in an hairbreadth, but especially by
swearing and subscribing that blasphemous oath, (which is the
Church of Ireland's black hour of temptation,) I would entreat
them, by the mercies of God at their last summons, to repent and
openly confess before the world, to the glory of the Lord, their
denial of Christ : or, otherwise, if either man or woman will
stand and abide by that oath, then, in the name and authority jof
the Lord Jesus, I let them see that they forfeit their part of
Heaven, and let them look for no less than a back-burden of the
pure, unmixed wrath of God, and the plague of apostates and
deniers of our Lord Jesus.
Let not me, a stranger to you, who never saw your face in the
flesh, be thought bold in writing to you : for the hope I have of a
glorious church in that land, and the love of Christ constraineth
me. I know that the worthy servants of Christ, who once labored
among you, cease not to write to you also, and I shall desire to be
excused that I do join with them.
Pray for your Sister-church in Scotland ; and let me entreat
you for the aid of your prayers for myself and flock and ministry,
and my fear of a transportation ' from this place of the Lord's
vineyard. Now the very God of peace sanctify you throughout.
Grace be with you all.
Your brother and companion,
In the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, 1639.
I Translation of a minister.
464 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCLXXXIX.
TO HIS REVEREND, AND MUCH HONORED BROTHER, DR. ALEX-
ANDER LEiGHTON. Christ's prisoner in bonds at London.
Reverend, and much honored Prisoner of Hope, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. — It was not my part whom our Lord
hath enlarged, to forget you his prisoner.
When I consider how long your night hath been, I think Christ
hath a mind to put you in free grace's debt so much the deeper,
as your sufferings have been of so long continuance. But what
if Christ mind you no joy but public joy with enlarged and tri-
umphing Zion : I think, sir, that ye would love it best to share
and divide your song of joy with Zion, and to have mystical
Christ in Britain halfer' and copartner with your enlargement.
I am sure, that your joy, bordering and neighboring with the joy
of Christ's Bride, would be so. much the sweeter that it were public.
I thought if Christ had halved my mercies, and delivered his bride
and not me, that his praises should have been double to what they
are ; but now two rich mercies conjoined in one have stolen from
our Lord more than half-praises. Oh, that mercy should so
beguile us, and steal away our counts and acknowledgments !
Worthy sir, I hope, that I need not exhort you to go on, in
hoping for the salvation of God. There hath not been so much
taken from your time of ease and created joys as eternity shall
add to your heaven. Ye know when one day in Heaven hath
paid you, yea, and overpaid your blood, bonds, sorrow, and suffer-
ings, that it would trouble angels' understanding to lay^ the count
of that surplus of glory, which eternity can and will give you.
Oh, but your sand-glass ^ of sufferings and losses cometh to little,
when it shall be counted and compared with the glory that abideth
you on the other side of the water ! Ye have no leisure to rejoice
and sing here, while time goeth about you, and where your psalms
will be short: therefore, ye will think eternity, and the long day
of Heaven that shall be measured with no other sun nor horologe
than the long life of the Ancient of days, to measure your praises
little enough for you. If your span-length of time be cloudy, ye
cannot but think, that your Lord can no more take your blood
and yoiu" bands without the income and recompense of free grace,
than he would take the sufferings of Paul and his other dear ser-
vants, that were well paid home beyond counting, (Rom. viii. 18.)
If the wisdom of Christ hath made you Antichrist's eyesore and
his envy, ye are to thank God that such a piece of clay, as ye are,
is made the field of glory to work upon : it was the Potter's aim
that the clay should praise him, and I hope it satisfieth you that
your clay is for his glory. Oh, who can suffer enough for such a
Lord ! and who can lay out in bank enough of pain, shame, losses,
1 Halver. 2 State. 3 Hour-class.
Rutherford's letters. 465
and tortures, to receive in again the free interest of eternal glory !
(2 Cor. iv. 17.) Oh, how advantageous a bargaining is it with
such a rich Lord ! If your hand and pen had been at leisure to
gain glory on paper, it had been but paper-glory : but the bearing
of a public cross so long, for the now controverted privileges of
the crown and sceptre of free King Jesus, the Prince of the kings
of the earth, is glory booked in Heaven. Worthy and dear
brother, if ye go to weigh Jesus liis sweetness, excellency, glory,
and beauty, and lay foregainst' him your ounces, or drachms of
suffering for him, ye shall be straitened two ways : — 1. It will be
a pain to make the comparison, the disproportion being by no
understanding imaginable : nay, if Heaven's arithmetic and angels
were set to work, they should never number the degrees of differ-
ence. 2. It would straiten you to find a scale for the balance to
lay that high and lofty One, that over-transcending Prince of
excellency in. If your mind could fancy as many created heavens
as time hath had minutes, trees have had leaves, and clouds have
had rain-drops, since tire first stone of the creation was laid, they
should not make half a scale in which to bear and weigh bound-
less excellency. And, therefore, the King whose marks ye are
bearing, and whose dying ye carry about with you in your body,
is, out of all cry and consideration, beyond and above all our
thoughts.
For myself, I am content to feed upon wondering sometimes, at
the beholding but of the borders and skirts of the incomparable
glory which is in that exalted Prince ; and I think, ye could wish
for more ears to give than ye have, since ye hope these ears ye
now have given him shall be passages to take in the music of his
glorious voice. I would fain both believe and pray for a new bride
of Jews and Gentiles to our Lord Jesus, after the land of graven
images shall be laid waste ; and that our Lord Jesus is on
horseback, hunting and pursuing the Beast ; and that England
and Ireland shall be well-sweeped chambers for Christ and his
righteousness to dwell in ; for he hath opened our graves in Scot-
land, and the two dead and buried Witnesses are risen again, and
are prophesying. Oh, that Princes would glory and boast them-
selves in carrying the train of Christ's robe royal in their arms !
Let me die within half an hour after I have seen the temple of
the Son of God enlarged, and the cords of Jerusalem's tent
lengthened, to take in a more numerous company for a bride to
the Son of God. Oh, if ^ the corner or foundation-stone of that
house, that new house, were laid above my grave !
Oh ! who can add to Him who is that great ALL ? If he
would create suns and moons, new heavens, thousand and thou-
sand degrees more perfect than these that now are ; and again,
make a new creation ten thousand thousand degrees in perfection
beyond that new creation ; and again, still for eternity multiply
new heavens : they should never be a perfect resemblance of that
infinite excellency, order, weight, measure, beauty, and sweetness
1 Opposite to. 2 Oh, that.
30
466 Rutherford's letters.
that is in him. Oh, how little of him do we see ! Oh, how shallow
are our thoughts of him ! Oh, if' I had pain for him and shame
and losses for him, and more clay and spirits for him ; and that I
could go upon earth without love, desire, hope, because Christ
hath taken away my love, desire, and hope to Heaven with him !
I know, worthy sir, your sufferings ^ for him are your glory;
and, therefore, weary not ; his salvation is near at hand, and shall
not tarry.
Pray for me. His grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Nov. 22, 1639.
LETTER CCXC.
TO MR. HENRY STUART, HIS WIFE, AND TWO DAUGHTERS, ALL
PRISONERS OF CHRIST AT DUBLIN.
" Fear none of those things, which ye shall suffer," — etc. — Rev. ii. 10.
Truly honored, and dearly beloved, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Think it not strange, beloved in our Lord Jesus, that Satan
can command keys of prisons, and bolts, and chains : — this is a
piece of the Devil's princedom that he hath over the world. In-
terpret and understand our Lord well in this : be not jealous of
his love, though he make devils and men his under-servants to
scour the rust off your faith, and purge you from your dross. And
let me charge you, O Prisoners of hope, to open your window,
and to look out by faith, and behold Heaven's post, that speedy
and swift salvation of God, that is coming to you. It is a broad
river that faith will not look over : it is a mighty and a broad sea,
that they of a lively hope cannot behold the furthest bank and
other shore thereof. Look over the water; your anchor is fixed
within the veil ; the one end of the cable is about the prisoner of
Christ, and the other is entered within the veil, whither the Fore-
runner is entered for you, (Heb. vi. 19, 20.) It can go straight
through the flames of the fire of the wrath of men, devils, losses,
1 Oh, that.
2 The Rev. A. Leitrhton, D.D., a presbyterian, was, for writing " Zion's Plea against
Prelacy," sentenced, in 1G30, to imprisonment during hfe; to pay a fine of 1 0,000;. ;
to be publicly whipped and pilloried at Westminster; to have one of his ears cut off,
one side of his nose slitted, and to be branded with a burning iron on one cheek with
S. S., as a sower of sedition ; — and, on another day, to be again publicly whipped
and pilloried at Cheapside; to have his other ear cut off, his other nostril slitted up,
and his other cheek branded with S. S. On Nov. IGth, Dr. Leighton underwent the
one half of this fiendish sentence; and on that day week — the sores on his back,
head, and face being yet unhealed — he was mercilessly whipped at Cheapside by the
hangman, who had previously been purposely intoxicated ; was exposed in the piU'
lory for nearly two hours in a hard frost and a fall of snow ; had his other ear cut
off, his other nostril slitted up, and his other cheek branded ; and, afterwards, being
unable to walk, was carried to the Fleet Prison, in which he lay till liberated by
the Long Parliament.
Rutherford's letters. 467
tortures, death, and not a thread of it be singed or burnt : — men
and devils have no teeth to bite it in two. Hold fast till he come.
Your cross is of the color of Heaven and Christ, and passmented '
over with the faith and comforts of the Lord's faithful covenant
with Scotland : and that die and color can abide fair weather, and
neither be stained nor cast the color ; — yea, it reflects a scad ^ like
the cross of Christ, whose holy hands many a day lifted up to
God, praying for sinners, were fettered and bound, as if those
blessed hands had stolen, and shed innocent blood. When your
lovely, lovely Jesus had no better than the thief's doom, it is no
wonder that your process be lawless and turned upside down ; for
he was taken, fettered, buffeted, whipped, spitted upon, before he
was convicted of any fault, or sentenced. Oh, such a pair of suf-
ferers and witnesses, as high and royal Jesus, and a poor piece
guilty clay marrowed ' together under one yoke ! Oh, how lovely
is the cross with such a second !
I believe that your prison is enacted in God's court, not to keep
you till your liope breathe out its life and last : your cross is
under law to restore you again safe to your brethren and sisters
in Christ. Take Heaven's and Christ's back-bond * for a fair
back-door out of your suffering. The Saviour is on his journey
with salvation and deliverance for Mount Zion ; and the sword
of the Lord is drunk with blood, and made fat with fatness; his
sword is bathed in Heaven against Babylon, for it is " the day of
the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompense for the contro-
versy of Zion :" and persuade yourselves the streams of the river
of Babylon shall be pitched, and the dust of the land brimstone
and burning pitch. (Isaiah xxxiv. 8, 9.) And if your deliverance
be joined with the deliverance of Zion, it shall be two salvations
to you.
It were good to be armed beforehand for death or bodily tortures
for Christ ; and to think what a crown of honor it is, that God
hath given you pieces of living clay, to be tortured witnesses for
saving truth ; and that ye are so happy, as to have some pints of
blood to give out for the crown of that royal Lord who hath
caused you to avouch himself before men. If ye can lend fines
of three thousand pounds sterling for Christ, let Heaven's register
and Christ's count-book keep in reckoning your depursements* for
him. It shall be engraven and printed in great letters upon Hea-
ven's throne, what you are willing to give for him : Christ's papers
of that kind cannot be lost, or fall by.^
Do not wonder to see clay boast ^ the great Potter, and to see
blinded men threaten the Gospel with death and burial, and to
raze out truth's name. But where will they make a grave for
the Gospel, and the Lord's bride? Earth and Hell shall be but
' Bedecked. Passments are stripes of lace sewed on clothes.
2 Gleam of reflected light. 3 Paired.
* A bond given by one who has received a previous bond, engaging that the person
who gave the previous bond shall not, in consequence of it, come to any loss or damage.
' Disbursements. ^ Aside. '' To threaten by look or word&
468 Rutherford's letters.
little bounds for their burial. Lay all the clay and rubbish of this
inch of the whole earth above our Lord's spouse, yet it will not
cover her, nor hold her down ; she shall live and not die, she shall
behold the salvation of God.
Let your faith frist ^ God a little, and not be afraid for a smok-
ing firebrand. There is more smoke in Babylon's furnace than
there is fire. Till doomsday shall come, they shall never see the
kirk of Scotland and our Covenant burnt to ashes ; or if it should
be thrown into the fire, yet it cannot be so burnt or buried as not
to have a resurrection. Angry clay's wind shall shake none of
Christ's corn : he will gather in all his wheat into his barn. Only
let your fellowship with Christ be renewed: ye are sibbler^ to
Christ now, when you are imprisoned for him, than before, for now
the strokes laid on you do come in remembrance before our Lord,
and he can own his own wounds : — a drink of Christ's love, which
is better than wine, is the drink-silver which suffering for his maj-
esty leaveth behind it. It is not your sins which they persecute
in you, but God's grace, and loyalty to King Jesus. They see no
treason in you to your prince the King of Britain, albeit they say
so ; but it is Heaven in you that earth is fighting against, and
Christ is owning his own cause. Grace is a party that fire will not
burn, nor water drown. When they have eaten and drunken you,
their stomach shall be sick, and they shall spue you out alive.
Oh, what glory is it, to be suffering abjects for the Lord's glory
and royalty ? Nay, though his servants had a body to burn for-
ever for this Gospel, so being that the high glory of triumphing
and exalted Jesus did rise out of these flames, and out of that
burning body, oh, what a sweet fire ! oh, what soul-refreshing
torment would that be ! What if the pickles ^ of dust and ashes
of the burnt and dissolved body, were musicians to sing his praises,
and the highness of that never-enough exalted Prince of ages?
Oh, what love is it in him, that lie will have such musicians as
we are to tune that psalm of his everlasting praises in Heaven !
Oh, what shining and burning flames of love are these, that Christ
will divide his share of life, of Heaven and glory with you ! (Luke
xxii. 29 ; John xvii. 24 ; Rev. iii. 21.) A part of his throne, one
draught of his wine — his wine of glory and life, that cometh from
under the throne of God and of the Lamb — and one apple of the
Tree of life, will do more than make up all the expenses and
charges of clay lent out for Heaven. Oh ! oh ! but we have short,
and narrow, and creeping thoughts of Jesus, and do but shape
Christ in our conceptions, according to some created portraiture !
O angels, lend in ^ your help to make love-books and songs of our
fair, and white, and ruddy standard-bearer amongst ten thousand !
O Heavens ! O Heaven of heavens ! O glorified tenants, and
triumphing households with the Lamb, put in new psalms and
love-sonnets of the excellency of our Bridegroom, and help us to
set him on high ! O indwellers of earth and Heaven, sea and
au", and O all ye created beings, within the bosom of the utmost
> Grant delay in payment. 2 More nearly related. 3 Grains. * Lend.
Rutherford's letters. 469
circle of this great world, oh, come help to set on high the praises
of our Lord ! O fairness of creatures, blush before his uncreated
beauty ! O created strength, be amazed to stand before your
strong Lord of hosts ! O created love, think shame ' of thyself
before this unparalleled love of Heaven ! O angel of wisdom, hide
thyself before our Lord, whose understanding passeth finding out !
O sun in thy shining beauty, for shame put on a web of darkness,
and cover thyself before thy brightest Master and Maker ! Oh,
who can add glory, by doing or suffering, to the never-enough ad-
mired and praised Lover ! Oh, we can but bring our drop to this
sea, and our candle, dim and dark as it is, to this clear and light-
some Sun of Heaven and earth ! Oh, but we have cause to drink
ten deaths in one cup dry, to swim through ten seas to be at that
land of praises, where we shall see that wonder of wonders, and
enjoy this Jewel of Heaven's jewels ! O death, do thy utmost
against us ! O torments, O malice of men and devils, waste your
strength on the witnesses of our Lord's testament ! O devils, bring
Hell to help you, in tormenting tlie followers of the Lamb ! We
will defy you to make us too soon happy, and to waft us too soon
over the water, to the land where tlie noble Plant, the Plant of
renown, groweth. O cruel time, that tormenteth us, and suspend-
eth our dearest enjoyments that we wait for, when we shall be
bathed and steeped, soul and body, down in the depths of this
Love of loves ! O time, I say, run fast ! O motions, mend your
pace ! O Well-beloved, be like a young roe on the Mountains of
Separation ! Post, post, and hasten our desired and hungered-for
meeting — love is sick to hear tell of to-morrow.
And what then can come wrong to you, O honorable witnesses
of his kingly truth? Men have no more of you to work upon,
than some inches and span-lengths of sick, coughing, and phleg-
matic clay. Your spirits are above their benches, courts, or high
commissions. Your souls, your love to Christ, your faith cannot
be summoned, nor sentenced, nor accused, nor condemned by pope,
deputy, prelate, ruler, or tyrant. Your faith is a free lord, and
cannot be a captive. All the malice of Hell and earth can but
hurt the scabbard of a believer; and death at the worst can get
but a clay pawn in keeping till your Lord make the King's keys,
and open your graves. Therefore, upon luck's head, as we use to
say, take your fill of his love, and let a post-way or causeway be
laid betwixt your prison and Heaven, and go up and visit your
treasure. Enjoy your Beloved, and dwell upon his love, till eter-
nity come in time's room, and possess you of your eternal happi-
ness. Keep your love to Christ, lay up your faith in Heaven's
keeping, and follow the Chief of the House of the Martyrs that wit-
nessed a fair confession before Pontius Pilate : — your cause and
his is all one. The opposers of his cause are like drunken judges
and transported, who in their cups would make acts and laws in
their drunken courts, that the sun should not rise and shine on
the earth ; and send their oflScers and pursuivants to charge the
^ Be ashamed.
470 Rutherford's letters.
sun and moon to give no more lig-ht to the world ; and would
enact in their court-books, that the sea, after once ebbing, should
never flow again : — but would not the sun, moon, and sea break
these acts, and keep their Creator's directions? The Devil, the
great Fool, and Father of these under-fools, is older and more
maUcious than wise, that setteth the spirits in earth on work to
contend and clash with Heaven's wisdom, and to give mandates
and law-summons to our Sun, to our great Star of Heaven, Jesus,
not to shine in the beauty of his Gospel, to the chosen and bought
ones. O thou fair and fairest Sun of righteousness, arise and
shine in thy strength, whether earth or Hell will or not. O victo-
rious, O royal, O stout, princely Soul-conqueror, ride prosperously
upon truth ; stretcli out thy sceptre as far as the sun shineth, and
the moon waxetfi and waneth. Put on thy glittering crown, O
thou Maker of kings, and make but one stride, or one step of the
whole earth, and travel in the greatness of thy strength, (Isaiah
Ixiii. 1, 2.) And let thy apparel be red, and all dyed with the blood
of thy enemies : — thou art fallen righteous Heir by line to the
kingdoms of the world.
Laugh ye at the giddy-headed clay-pots, and stout, brain-sick
worms, that dare say, in good earnest, " This man shall not reign
over us;" as though they were casting the dice for Christ's crown,
which of them should have it. I know that ye believe the com-
ing of Christ's Kingdom ; and that there is a hole out of your
prison, through which ye see daylight. Let not faith be dazzled
with the temptations from a dying deputy, and from a sick pre-
late ; believe under a cloud, and wait for him when there is no
moon-light nor star-light. Let faith live and breathe, and lay hold
on the sure salvation of God, when clouds and darkness are about
you, and appearance of rotting in the prison before you. Take
heed of unbelieving hearts, which can father lies upon Christ.
Beware of " Doth his promise fail for evermore ?" (Ps. Ixxvii. 8.)
For it was a man, and not God, that said it, who dreamed that a
promise of God could fail, fall a-swoon,' or die. We can make
God sick, or his promises weak, when we are pleased to seek a
plea "^ with Christ. O sweet, O stout word of faith, (Job xiii. 15,)
"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him !" O sweet epitaph,
written upon the grave-stone of a dying believer, namely — " I
died hoping, and my dust and ashes believe in life !" Faith's
eyes, that can see through a mill-stone, can see through a gloom'
of God, and under it read God's thoughts of love and peace. Hold
fast Christ in the dark ; surely ye shall see the salvation of God.
Your adversaries are ripe and dry for the fire ; yet a little while,
and they shall go up in a flame ; the breath of the Lord, like a
river of brimstone, shall kindle about them.
What 1 write to one I write to ye all, that are sound-hearted in
that kingdom, whom, in the bowels of Christ, I would exhort not
to touch that oath. Albeit the adversaries put a fair meaning on
it, yet the swearer must swear according to the professed intent
• Into a swoon. 2 Q,uarrel. 3 Frown.
Rutherford's letters. 471
and godless practice of the oath-makers, which is known to the
world ; otherwise I might swear that the creed is false, according
to this private meaning and sense put upon it. Oh, let them not
be beguiled to wash perjury, and (he denial of Christ and the
Gospel with ink-water :^ — some foul and rotten distinctions. Wash,
and wash again and again the Devil and the lie, it will be long
ere their skin be white.
I profess, it should beseem men of great parts rather than me
to write to you : but I love your Cause, and desire to be excused ;
and must entreat for the help of your prayers, in this my weighty
charge here for the University and pulpit, and that ye would en-
treat your acquaintance also to help me. Grace be with you all.
Amen.
Your brother and companion.
In the patience and Kingdom of Jesus Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's, 1640.
LETTER CCXCI.
TO MRS. PONT, PRISONER AT DUBLIN.
Worthy and dear Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. — The cause which ye suffer for, and your willingness to
suffer, is ground enough of acquaintance for me to write to you ;
although I do confess myself unable to speak for the encourage-
ment of a prisoner of Christ.
I know that ye have advantage beyond us who are not under
"sufferings ; for your sighing, (Ps. cii. 20,) is a written bill for the
ears of your Head, the Lord Jesus ; and your breathing, (Lara,
iii. 56 ;) and your looking up, (Ps. v. 3, and Ixix. 3.) And, there-
fore, your meaning, half-spoken, half-unspoken, will seek no jailer's
leave, but will go to Heaven without leave of prelate or deputy,
and be heartily welcome ; so that ye may sigh and groan out
your mind to Him who hath all the keys of the King's Three
Kingdoms and dominions. I dare believe that your hope shall
not die. Your trouble is a part of Zion's burning, and ye know
who guideth Zion's furnace, and who loveth the ashes of his
burnt bride, because his servants love them, (Ps. cii. 14.) I believe
that your ashes, if ye were burnt for this cause, shall praise him:
for the wrath of men and their malice shall make a psalm to praise
the Lord, (Ps. Ixxvi. 10.) And, therefore, stand still, and behold,
and see what the Lord is to do for this island ; his work is perfect,
(Deut. xxxii. 4.) The nations have not seen the last end of his
work ; his end is more fair and more glorious than the beginning.
Ye have more honor than ye can be able to guide well, in that
your bonds are made heavy for such an honorable cause. The
seals of a controlled Gospel, and the seals by bonds, and blood,
and sufferings, are not committed to every ordinary professor.
Some that would back Christ honestly in summer-time, would but
472 Rutherford's letters.
spill ' the beauty of the Gospel, if they were put to suffering-.
And, therefore, let us believe, that Wisdom dispenseth to every
one here, as He thinketh good who beareth them up that bear the
cross: and since our Lord hath put you to tliat part, u'liich was
the flower of his own sufferings, we all expect that, as ye have in
the strength of our Captain begun, so ye will go on without faint-
ing. Providence maketh use of men and devils for the reflning
of all the vessels of God's house, small and great; and for doing
of two great works at once in you, both for smoothing a stone to
make it take band with Christ in .Jerusalem's wall ; and for wit-
nessing to the glory of this reproached and borne-down Gospel,
which carmot die, though Hell were made a grave about it. It
shall be timous ' joy for you to divide joy betwixt you and Christ's
laughing bride in these Three Kingdoms : — and what if your
mourning continue till mystical Christ in Ireland and in Great
Britain and ye laugh both together? Your laughing and joy
were the more blessed, that one sun should shine upon Christ, the
Gospel, and you, laughing altogether in these Three Kingdoms.
Your time is measured, and your days and hours of suffering from
eternity were, by infinite Wisdom, considered. If Heaven recom-
pense not to your own mind inches of sorrow, then I must say,
that infinite Mercy cannot get you pleased ; but if the first kiss
of the white and ruddy cheek of the Standard-bearer and Chief
among ten thousand, (Cant. v. 10,) shall overpay your prison at
Dublin, in Ireland, then ye shall have no counts unanswered to
give in to Christ. If your faith cannot see a nearer term-day, yet
let me charge your hope to give Christ a new day, till eternity
and time meet in one point. A paid sum, if ever paid, is paid, if
no day be broken to the hungr}^ creditor : take Heaven's bond and
subscribed obligation for the sum, (John xiv. 3.) If hope can trust
Christ, I know that he can, and will pay: but when all is done
and suffered by you, ten hundred deaths for lovely, lovely Jesus is
but eternity's half-penny; — -figures and cyphers cannot lay* the
proportion. Oh, but the surplus of Christ's glory is broad and
large ! Christ's items of eternal glory are hard and cumbersome
to tell ; and if ye borrow by faith and hope ten days, or ten hun-
dred years from that eternity of glory that abideth you, ye are
paid and more, in your hand. Therefore, O Prisoner of hope,
wait on ; posting, hasting salvation sleepeth not. Antichrist is
bleeding, and in the way to death ; and he biteth the sorest, when
he bleedeth the fastest. Keep your intelligence betwixt you and
Heaven, and your court with Christ ; he hath in Heaven the keys
of your prison, and can set you at liberty when he pleaseth. His
rich grace support you. I pray you to help me with your prayers.
Grace be with you.
Your brother.
In the patience and Kingdom of Jesus Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's, 1G40.
• Mar, 2 Unite, as mortar with a stone. 3 Seasonable. * State.
Rutherford's letters. 473
LETTER CCXCII.
TO MR. JAMES WILSON.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon
you. — I bless our rich and only wise Lord who careth so for his
new creation, that he is going over it again, and trying every
piece in you, and blowing away the motes of his new work in
you. Alas ! I am not so fit a physician as your disease requireth.
Sweet, sweet, lovely Jesus be your physician, where his under-
chirurgeons cannot do anything for putting in order the wheels,
paces, and goings of a marred soul. I have little time; but yet
the Lord hath made me so to concern myself in your condition,
that I dow not, I dare not, be altogether silent.
First, Ye doubt, from 2 Cor. xiii. 5, whether ye be in Christ or
not? and so, whether ye are a reprobate or not? I answer three
things to the doubt : — 1. Ye owe charity to all men, but most of
all to lovely and loving Jesus, and some also to yourself, especially
to your renewed self; because your new self is not yours, but an-
other Lord's, even the work of his own Spirit ; therefore, to slan-
der his work is to wrong himself Love thinketh no evil ; if ye
love grace, think not ill of grace in yourself; and ye think ill
of grace in yourself when ye make it but a bastard and a work
of nature ; for a holy fear that ye be not Christ's, and withal a
care and a desire to be his, and not your own, is not, nay, can-
not be, bastard nature. The great Advocate pleadeth hard for
you ; be upon the Advocate's side, O poor feared client of Christ !
Stay, and side with such a Lover, who pleadeth for no other
man's goods than his own ; (for he, if I may say so, scorneth to
be enriched with unjust conquest;') and yet he pleadeth for you,
whereof your letter, though too, too full of jealousy,'- is a proof
For, if ye were not his, your thoughts, wliich, I hope, are but the
suggestions of his Spirit, (that only bringeth the matter into de-
bate, to make it sure to you,) would not be such, nor so serious
as these, " Am I his ?" or " Whose am I ?" 2. Dare ye forswear
your Owner, and say in cold blood, "I am not his?" What na-
ture or corruption saith at starts, in you. I regard not. Your
thoughts of yourself, when sin and guiltiness round you in the
ear, and when you have a sight of your deservings, are Apocrypha,
and not Scripture, I hope. Hear what the Lord saiih of you,
" He will speak peace." If your Master say, " I quit you," I shall
then bid you eat ashes for bread, and drink waters of gall and
wormwood. But, however Christ out of his own mouth should
seem to say, " I come not for thee," as he did. Matt. xv. 24 ; yet
let me say, that the words of tempting Jesus are not to be
stretched as Scripture, beyond his intention, seeing his intention
in speaking them is to strengthen, not to deceive ; and, therefore,
1 Acquisition. 2 Suspicion.
474 Rutherford's letters.
here faith may contradict what Christ seemeth at first to say, and
so may ye. I charge you, by the' mercies of God, be not that'
cruel to g-race and the new birth as to cast water on your own
coal by misbelief. If ye must die, (as I know ye shall not,) it
were a folly to slay yourself. 3. I hope that ye love the new birth
and a claim to Christ, howbeit ye do not make it good ; and if ye
were in Hell, and saw the heavenly face of lovely, ten thousand .
times lovely Jesus, that hath God's hue, and God's fair, fair and "^
comely red and white, wherewith it is beautified beyond compari-
son and imagination, ye could not forbear to say, " Oh, if I could
but blow a kiss from my sinful mouth from Hell up to Heaven,
upon his cheeks that are a bed of spices, as sweet flowers !" (Cant.
V. 13.) I hope ye dare say, '• O fairest Sight of Heaven ! O
boundless Mass of crucified and slain love for me, give me leave
to wish to love thee ! O Flower and Bloom of Heaven and earth's
love ! O angels' Wonder ! 0 thou, the Father's eternal, sealed
Love ! and O thou, God's old Delight ! give me leave to stand be-
side thy love, and look in, and wonder ; and give me leave to
wish to love thee, if I can do no more." 4. We being born in
atheism, and bairns of the house that we are come of, it is no new
thing, my dear brother, for us to be under jealousies ^ and mis-
takes about the love of God. What think ye of this, that the
Man, Christ, was tempted to believe there were but two persons in
the blessed Godhead, and that the Son of God, the substantial
and co-eternal Son, was not the lawful Son of God? Did not
Satan say, " If thou be the Son of God ?"
Secondly, Ye say, that ye know not what to do. Your Head
said once that same word, or not far from it. (John xii. 27,) " Now
is my soul troubled, and what shall I say ?" And faith answered
Christ's "What shall I say?" with these words, "O tempted
Saviour, askest thou, ' What shall I say ?' Say, ' Pray, Father,
save me from this hour.'" What course can ye take but pray
and frist^ Christ his own comforts? He is no dyvour; take his
word. " Oh," say ye, " I cannot pray." Answer — Honest sigh-
ing is faith breathing and whispering him in the ear : the life is
not out of faith, where there is sighing, looking up with the eyes,
and breathing toward God ; (Lam. iii. 56,) " Hide not thine ear
at my breathing." " ]3ut what shall I do in spiritual exercises?"
ye say. Answer — 1. If ye knew particularly what to do, it were
not a spiritual exercise. 2. In my weak judgment, ye should first
say, " I would glorify God in believing David's salvation, and the
bride's marriage with the Lamb, and love the Church's slain Hus-
band, although I cannot for the present believe mine own salva-
tion." 3. Say, "I will not pass from my claim ; suppose Christ
should pass from his claim to me, it sliall not go back upon my
side : howbeit my love to him be not worth a drink of water, yet
Christ shall have it, such as it is." 4. Say, "I shall rather spill *
twenty prayers than not pray at all. Let my broken words go up
» So. 2 Oh, that. 3 Suspicions.
* Tofrlst, to grant delay in payment. ^ Mar.
Rutherford's letters. 475
to Heaven ; when they come up into the Great Angel's golden
censer, that compassionate Advocate will put together my broken
prayers, and perfume them." Words are but accidents of prayer.
" Oh," say ye, " I am slain with hardness of heart, and troubled
with confused and melancholious ' thoughts." Answer — My dear
brother, what would ye conclude thence? — that ye knew not well
who aughteth 2 you? I grant: "Oh, my heart is hard! oh, my
thoughts of faithless sorrow ! Ergo, I know not who aughteth-
me" were good logic in Heaven amongst angels and the glorified ;
but down in Christ's hospital, where sick and distempered souls
are under cure, it is not worth a straw. Give Christ time to end
his work in your heart. Hold on in feeling and bewailing your
hardness ; for that is softness to feel hardness. 2. I charge you
to make psalms of Christ's praises for his begun work of grace.
Make Christ your music and your song ; for complaining and
feeling of want doth often swallow up your praises. What think
ye of those who go to Hell never troubled with such thoughts?
If your exercises be the way to Hell, God help me ! I have a
cold coal to blow at, and a blank paper for Heaven. I give you
Christ caution ^ and my Heaven surety for your salvation. Lend
Christ your melancholy, for Satan hath no right to make a cham-
ber in your melancholy. Borrow joy and comforts from the Com-
forter. Bid the Spirit do his office in you ; and remember that
faith is one thing, and the feeling and notice of faith another.
God forbid that feeling were proprium quarto modo to all the
saints : and that this were good reasoning, " No feeling, no grace."
I am sure, ye were not always, these twenty years by-past, actu-
ally knowing that ye live ; yet all this time ye are living : so it
is with the life of faith.
But, alas ! dear brother, it is easy for me to speak words and
syllables of peace ; but Isaiah (Ivii. 19,) telleth you, " I create
peace." There is but one Creator ye know. Oh, that ye may
get a letter of peace sent you from Heaven !
Pray for me, and for grace to be faithful, and for gifts to be
able, with tongue and pen, to glorify God. I forget you not.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Jan. 8, 1640.
LETTER CCXCIIL
TO MY LADY BOYD.
Madam, — I received your Ladyship's letter ; but because I was
still going through the country for the affairs of the Church, I
have had no time to answer it.
I had never more cause to fear than I have now, when my Lord
hath restored me to my second created Heaven on earth, and hath
1 Melancholy. * To augh<., to possess, to own. 3 Security.
476 Rutherford's letters.
turned my apprehended fears into joys, and great deliverance to
his Church — whereof I have my share and part. Alas, that weep-
ing prayers, answered, and sent back from Heaven with joy,
should not have laughing praises ! Oh, that this land would re-
pent and lay burdens of praises upon the top of the fair Mount
Zion ! Madam, except this land be humbled, a reformation is
rather ray wonder than belief at this time. But surely it must be
a wonder, and what is done already is a wonder. Our Lord must
restore beauty to his churches without hire ; for we were sold
without money, and now our buyers repent them of the bargain,
and would gladly give again better-cheap than they bought us.
They devoured .Tacob, and ate up his people as bread ; now Jacob
is growing a living child in their womb, and they would fain be
dehvered of the child, and render the birth : — our Lord shall be
Midwife. Oh, that this land be not like Ephraim, " an unwise
son, that stayeth too long in the place of the breaking forth of
children !"
Your Ladyship is blessed with, children, who are honored to
build up Christ's waste places again. I believe that your Lady-
ship will think them well bestowed on that work, and that Zion's
beauty is your joy. This is a mark and evidence from Heaven,
which helpeth weak ones to hold their grip/ when other marks
fail them.
I hope that your Ladyship is at a good understanding with
Christ ; and that, as becometh a Christian, ye take him up aright,
(for many mistake and misshape Christ,) in his comings and
goings. Your wants and falls proclaim, tiiat ye have nothing of
your own but what yc borrow ; — nay, yourself is not your own, —
but Christ hath given himself to you. Put Christ to the bank,
and Heaven shall be your interest and inconne. Love him, for ye
cannot over-love him. Take up your house in Christ, let him
dwell in you, and abide in him ; and then ye may look out of
Christ, and laugh at the clay-heavens, that the sons of men are
seeking after on this side of tlie water. Christ mindeth to make
your losses grace's great advantage. Christ will lose nothing of
you ; nay, not even your sins, for he hath a use for tliem, as well
as for your service ; howbeit ye are to loathe yourself for them.
I hope that ye fetch all the heaven ye have here in this life from
that which is up above ; and that your anchor is casten as high
and deep as Christ ; oh, but it is far and many a mile to the bot-
tom of his love ! If I had known long since, as I do now, (though
still alas ! I am ignorant,) what was in Christ, I Avould not have
been so late in starting to the gate ^ to seek him.
Oh, what can I do or say to Him who hath made the north
render me back again ! A grave is no sure prison to him for the
keeping of dry bones. Woe is me, that my foolish sorrow and un-
belief, being on horseback, did ride so proudly and witlessly over
my Lord's providence : — but when my faith was asleep, Christ
was awake ; and now, when I am awake, I say, he did all things
1 Gripe. s Commencing with an alacrity.
Rutherford's letters. 477
well. Oh, infinite wisdom ! Oh, incomparable loving-kindness !
Alas, that the heart I have, is so little and worthless for such a
Lord as Christ is ! Oh, what odds find the saints in hard trials,
when they feel sap at their roots, betwixt them and sun-burned,
withered professors ! — crosses and storms cause them to cast their
blooms and leaves. Poor world hngs, what will ye do, when the
span-length of your forenoon's laughter is ended, and when the
weeping side of providence is turned to you ?
I put all the favors which ye have bestowed on my brother
upon Clirist's score, in whose books are many such counts, and
who will requite them. I wish you to be builded more and more
upon the Stone laid in Zion, and then, ye shall be the more fit to
have a hand in rebuilding our Lord's fallen Tabernacle in this
land, in which ye shall find great peace when ye come to grips '
with death, the King of terrors.
The God of peace be with your Ladyship ; aud keep you blame-
less till the day of our Lord Jesus.
Your Ladyship's,
At all obedience in his sweet Lord and Master, S. B.
St Andrew's. "
LETTER CCXCIV.
TO HIS VERY DEAR FRIEND, JOHN FENWICK.
Much honored, and dear Friend, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. — The necessary impediments of my calling have hith-
erto kept me from making a return to your letter, the heads
whereof I shall now briefly answer : —
As, L I approve of your going to the Fountain, when your own
cistern is diy. A difference there must be betwixt Christ's well
and your borrowed water ; and why but ye have need of empti-
ness and drying up as well as ye have need of the well? Want,
and a hole there must be in our vessel, to leave room to Christ's
art. His well hath its own need of thirsty drinkers, to commend
infinite love which from eternity did brew such a cellar of living
waters for us.
II. Ye conmiend his free love ; and it is well done ! Oh if^ I
could help you, and if I could be master-convener, to gather an
earth-full an heaven-full of tongues, dipped and steeped in my
Lord's well of love, or his wine of love, even tongues drunken
with his love, to raise a song of praises to him, betwixt the east
and west end, and furthest points of the broad heavens ! If I
were in your case, (as, alas ! my dry and dead heart is not now
in that garden,) I would borrow leave to come and stand upon the
banks and coasts of that sea of love, and be a feasted soul, to see
love's fair tide, free love's high and lofty waves, each of them
1 Close struggling. 2 oh, that.
478 Rutherford's letters.
higher than ten earths, flowing in upon pieces of lost clay. Oh,
welcome, welcome, great sea ! Oh, if' I had as much love for
wideness and breadth, as twenty outmost shells and spheres of
the Heaven of heavens, that I might receive in a hltle flood of his
free love! Come, come, dear friend, and be pained, that the
King's wine-cellar of free love, and his banqueting-house — oh, so
wide, so stately ! oh, so God-like, so glory-like ! — should be so
abundant, so overflowing, and your shallow vessel so little, to take
in some part of that love. But since it cannot come into you, for
want of room, enter yourself into this sea of love, and breathe
under these waters, and die of love, and live as one dead and
drowned of this love.
III. But why do ye complain of waters going over your soul,
and that the smoke of the terrors of a wrathful Lord doth almost
suffocate you, and bring you to death's brink ? I know that the
fault is in your eyes, not in him. It is not the rock that fleeth
and moveth, but the green sailor. If your sense and apprehen-
sion be made judge of his love, there is a graven image made
presently, even a changed god, and a foe god, who was once —
" when ye washed your steps with butter, and the rock poured
you out rivers of oil," (Job xxix. 6,) — a Friend God. Either now
or never, let God work. Ye had never, since ye were a man,
such a fair field for faith ; for a painted hell and an apprehension
of wrath in your Father, is faith's opportunity to try what strength
is in it. Now, give God as large a measure of charity as ye have
of sorrow. Now, see faith to be faith indeed, if ye can make your
grave betwixt Christ's feet and say, "Though he should slay me,
I will trust in him ; his believed love shall be my winding-sheet,
and all my grave-clothes ; I shall roll and sew in my soul, my
slain soul, in that web, his sweet and free love ; and let him write
upon my grave. ' Here lieth a believing dead man, breathing out
and making a hole in death's broad-side, and the breath of faith
cometh forth through the hole.' " See now if ye can overcome
and prevail with God, and wrestle God's tempting to death quite
out of breath, as that renowned wrestler did, (Hos. xii. 3,) "And
by his strengtii he had power witli God ;" (ver. 4.) "yea, he had
power over tlie Angel, and prevailed." He is a strong man, indeed,
who overmatcheth Heaven's Strength, and the Holy One of Israel,
the Strong Lord : which is done by a secret supply of divine
strength within, wherewith the weakest, being strengthened, over-
come and conquer. It shall be great victory, to blow out the
flame of that furnace ye are now in, with the breath of faith :
and when Hell, men, malice, cruelty, falsehood, devils, the seeming
glooms'^ of a sweet Lord, meet you in tlie teeth, if ye then, as a
captive of hope, as one fettered in hope's prison, run to your
stronghold, even from God gloomingj^* to God glooming,' and
believe the salvation of the Lord in the dark, which is your only
victory, — your enemies, that are but pieces of malicious clay, shall
die as men, and be confounded. But, that your troubles are many
1 Oh, that. 2 Frowns. 3 Frowning.
Rutherford's letters. 479
at once, and arrows come in from all airths/ from country, friends,
wife, children, foes, estate, and right-down from God who is the
hope and stay of your soul, I confess is more, and very heavy to
be borne : yet all tliese are not more than grace ; all these bits of
coals casten into your sea of mercy, cannot dry it up. Your
troubles are many and great ; yet not an ounce-weight beyond
the measure of infinite wisdom, I hope, nor beyond the measure
of grace that he is to bestow ; for our Lord never yet brake the
back of his child nor spilled ^ his own work. Nature's plastering
and counterfeit work he doth often break in shreds and putteth
out a candle not lighted at the Sun of righteousness ; but he must
cherish his own reeds, and handle them softly ; never a reed
getlelh a thrust with the Mediator's hand, to lay together the two
ends of the reed. Oh, what bands and ligaments hath our
Chirurgeon of broken spirits, to bind up all his lame and bruised
ones with ! Cast your disjointed spirit into his lap ; and lay your
burden upon One who is so willing to take your cares and your
fears off you, and to exchange and niffer^ your crosses, and to
give you new for old, and gold for iron, — even to give you gar-
ments of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
IV. It is true, in great part, what ye write of this Kirk, that the
letter of religion only is reformed, and scarce that. I do not
believe our Lord will build his Zion in this land, upon this skin of
reformation. So long as our scum remaineth, and our heart-idols
are keeped, this work must be at a stand; and, therefore, our
Lord must yet sift this land, and search us with candles ; and I
know, that he will give and not sell us, his Kingdom. His grace,
and our remaining guiltiness must be compared, and the one must
be seen in the glory of it, and the other in the sinfulness of it.
But I desire to believe, and would gladly hope to see, that the
glancing and shining lustre of glory coming from the diamonds
and stones set in the crown of our Lord Jesus, shall cast rays and
beams many thousand miles about. I hope that Christ is upon a
great marriage; and that his wooing and suiting'' of his excellent
bride doth take its beginning from us, the ends of the earth. Oh,
what joy and what glory would I judge it, if my heaven should
be suspended, till I might have leave to run on foot to be a witness
of that marriage-glory, and see Christ put on the glory of his last
married bride, and his last marriage-love on earth ; when he shall
enlarge his love-bed, and set it upon the top of the mountains,
and take in the Elder Sister, the Jews, and the fulness of the
Gentiles ! It were Heaven's honor and glory upon earth, to be his
lacke3^ to run at his horse's foot, and hold up the train of his
marriage-robe royal, in the day of our high and royal Solomon's
espousals. But, oh, what glory to have a seat or bed in the
chariot of King Jesus, that is bottomed with gold, and paved, and
lined over, and floored within with love, for the daughters of Jeru-
salem! (Cant. iii. 10.) To lie upon such a King's love, were a
bed next to the Flower of Heaven's glory.
1 Quarters, 2 Spoiled. 3 Barter. * Courting.
480 Rutherford's letters.
V. I am sorry to hear you speak in your letter, of a ''God angry
at you," and of " the sense of his indignation, which only ariseth
from suffering for Jesus" — all that is now come upon you.
Indeed " apprehended wrath" flameth out of such asiies as
"apprehended sin," but not from "suffering for Christ." But,
suppose ye were in Hell, for by-gones ^ and for old debt — I hope
ye owe Christ a great sum of charity, to believe the sweetness of
his love. I know what it is to sin in that kind. It is to sin out,
if it were possible, the unchangeableness of a Godhead out of
Christ, and to sin away a lovely and unchangeable God. Put
more honest apprehensions upon Christ. Put on his own mask
upon his face, and not your veil made of unbelief, which speaketh
as if he borrowed love to you from you and your demerits and sin-
ful deservings. Oh, no ! Cluist is man, but he is not like man.
He hath man's love in Heaven, but it is lustred with God's love,
and it is very God's love ye have to do with — when your wheels
go about, he standeth still. Let God be God, and be ye a man,
and have ye the deserving of man, and the sin of one, who hath
suffered your Well-beloved to slip away ; nay, hath refused him
entrance, wlien he was knocking, till his head and locks were
frozen : yet, what is that to him? His book keepeth your name,
and is not printed, and re-printed, and changed, and corrected.
And why, but he should go to his place and hide himself? How-
beit his departure be his own good work, yet the belief of it, in
that manner, is your sin. But wait on till he return with salva-
tion, and cause you to rejoice in the latter end. It is not much
to complain ; but rather believe than complain, and sit in the dust,
and close your mouth, till he make your sown light grow again ;
for your afflictions are not eternal, time will end them, and so shall
ye at length see the Lord's salvation. His love sleepeth not, but
is still working for you. His salvation will not tarry nor linger ;
and suffering for him is the noblest cross that is out of Heaven.
Your Lord hath the wale and choice ^ of ten thousand other crosses,
beside this, to exercise you withal ; but his wisdom and his love
waled ^ and choosed out this for you, beside them all : and take it
as a choice one, and make use of it, so as ye look to this world as
your stepmother, in your borrowed prison. For it is a love-look to
Heaven, and the other side of the water, that God seeketh ; and
this is tlie fruit, the flower and bloom growing out of your cross,
that ye be a dead man to time, to clay, to gold, to country, to
friends, wife, children, and all pieces of created nothings ; for in
them there is not a seat nor bottom for soul's love. Oh, what room
is for your love, (if it were as broad as the sea.) up in Heaven, and
in God! And what would not Christ give for your love? God
gave so much for your soul ; and blessed are ye if ye have a love
for him, and can call in your soul's love from all idols, and can
make a God of God, a God of Christ, and draw a hue betwixt
your heart and him.^ If your deliverance come not, Christ's pres-
1 By-passed matters. 2 pick and choice. ^ Selected.
* Unite your heart and him by the bands of love, and the cords of a man. Hos. xi. 4.
Rutherford's letters. 481
ence and his believed love, must stand as caution ' and surety for
your deliverance, till your Lord send it in his blessed time. For
Christ hath many salvations, if we could see them ; and I would
think it better-born comfort and joy, that cometh from the faith of
deliverance, and the faith of his love, than that which cometh
from dehverance itself It is not much matter, if ye find ease to
your afflicted soul, what be the means, either of your own wishing
or of God's choosing — the latter, 1 am sine, is best, and the com-
forts strongest and sweetest. Let the Lord absolutely have the
ordering of your evils and troubles, and put them off you, by re-
commending your cross and your furnace to Him who hath skill
to melt his own metal, and knoweth well what to do with his fur-
nace. Let your heart be willing that God's fire have your tin, and
brass, and dross. To consent to want corruption, is a greater
mercy than many professors do well know ; and to refer the man-
ner of God's physic to his own wisdom, whether it be by drawing
blood, or giving sugared drinks. That he cureth sick folks with-
out pain, it is a great point of faith ; and to believe Christ's cross
to be a friend, as he himself is a Friend, is also a special act of
faith. But when ye are over the water, this case shall be a yes-
terday past a hundred years ere ye were born : and the cup of
glory shall wash the memory of all this away, and make it as
nothing. Only now take Christ in with you under your yoke, and
let patience have her perfect work ; for this haste, is your infirmity.
The Lord is rising up to do you good in the latter-end ; put on
the faith of his salvation, and see him posting and hasting towards
you.
Sir, my employments being so great, hinder me to write at more
length ; excuse me ; I hope to be mindful of you. I shall be
obliged to you, if ye help me with your prayers for this people, this
College, and my own poor soul.
Grace be with you. Remember my love to your wife.
Yours, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Feb. 13, 1640.
LETTER CCXCV.
TO THE MUCH HONORED PETER STIRLING.
Much honored and worthy Sir, — I received yours, and
cannot but be ashamed that mistaking love hath brought me into
court ^ and account in the heart of God's children, especially of
another nation. I should not make a lie of the grace of God, if I
should think I have little share of it myself Oh, how much bet-
ter were it for me, to stand in the counting-table of many for a
halfpenny, and to be esteemed a liker, rather than a lover of Christ !
If I were weighed, vanity would bear down the scale, as having
1 Security. ^ Influence.
31
482 Rutherford's letters.
weio-ht in the balance above me, except my lovely Saviour should
cast in beside me some of his borrowed worth. And, oh, if ^ I were
writino- now sincerely in this extenuation, which may be, and I
fear is, subtile and cozening pride ! I would I could love some-
thing of Heaven's worth, in you and all of your metal. Oh, how
happy were I, if I could regain and conquer laack from the creature
my sold and lost love, that I might lay it upon Heaven's Jewel,
that ever, ever blooming Flower of the highest garden, even my
soul-redeeming and never-enough prized Lord Jesus ! Oh, that
he would wash my love, and put it on the Mediator's wheel, and
refine it from its dross and tin, that I might propine^ and gift^ that
Lord, so love-worthy, with all my love ! Oh, if I could set^ a
lease of thousands of years, and a suspension of my part of
Heaven's glory, and frist^ till a long day, my desired salvation, so
being that I could, in this lower kitchen and under-vault of his
creation, be feasted with his love, and that I might be a footstool
to his glory, before men and angels ! Oh, if ' he would let out
Heaven's fountain upon withered me, dry and sapless me ! If I
were but sick of love for his love, — and oh, how would that sick-
ness deUght me ! — how sweet should that easing and refreshing
pain be to my soul !
1 shall be glad to be a witness to behold the kingdoms of the
world become Christ's. I could stay out of Heaven many years,
to see that victorious, triumphing Lord act that prophesied part of
his soul-conquering love, in taking into his kingdom the Greater
Sister, that Kirk of the Jews, who sometimes,^ courted our Well-
beloved for her Little Sister, (Cant, viii, 8 ;) to behold him set up
as an ensign and banner of love, to the ends of the world. And
truly, we are to believe that his wrath is ripe for the Land of
graven images, and for the falling of that millstone into the midst
of the sea.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, March 6, 1640.
LETTER CCXCVL
TO THE LADY FINGASK.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — Though not ac-
quainted, yet, at the desire of a Christian, I make bold to write a
line or two unto you by way of counsel — howbeit I be most unfit
for that.
I hear, and I bless the Father of lights for it, that ye have a
spirit set to seek God, and that the posture of your heart is to look
heavenward, which is a work and cast of the Mediator Christ's
right-hand, who putteth on the heart a new frame ; for the which
» Oh, that. 2 Present. 3 Endow.
* Let. 5 Postpone possession of. ^ Formerly.
Rutherford's letters. 4S3
I would have your Ladyship, to see a tie and bond of obedience
laid upon you, that all may be done, not so much from obligation
of law, as from the tie of free love ; that the law of ransom-pay-
ing by Christ may be the chief ground of all your obedience, see-
ing that ye are not under the Law, but under grace. Withal,
know that unbelief is a spiritual sin, and so not seen by nature's
light ; and that all which conscience saith is not Scripture. Sup-
pose that your heart bear witness against you, for sins done long
ago ; yet because many have pardon with God, that have not
peace with themselves, ye are to stand and fall by Christ's esteem
and verdict of you, and not by that which your heart saith. Sup-
pose it may, by accident, be a good sign, to be jealous ' of youi
heavenly Husband's love, yet it is a sinful sign — as there be some
happy sins, (if I may speak so,) not of themselves, but because
they are neighbored with faith and love. And so, worthy Lady,
I would have you to hold by this, that the ancient love of an old
husband standeth firm and sure; and let faith hing^ by this small
thread, that he loved you before he laid the corner-stone of the
world; and, therefore, he cannot change his mind, because he is
God and resteth in his love. Neither is sin in you a good reason,
wherefore ye should doubt of him, or think, because sin hath put
you in the courtesy and reverence of justice, that, therefore, he is
wroth with you ; neither is it presumption in you to lay the bur-
den of your salvation on One mighty to save ; so being that ye
lay aside all confidence in yourself, your worth and righteousness.
True faith is humble, and seeth no way to escape but only in
Christ. And I believe that ye have put an esteem and high price
upon Christ ; and they cannot but believe, and so be saved, who
love Christ, and to whom he is precious ; for the love of Christ
hath chosen Christ as a Lover; and it were not like God, if ye
should choose him as your liking, and he not choose you again ;
nay, he hath prevented ^ you in that ; for ye have not chosen him,
but he hath chosen you.
Oh, consider his loveliness and beauty, and that there is nothing
which can commend and make fair Heaven or earth, or the
creature, that is not in him, in infinite perfection ; for fair sun
and fair moon are black, and think shame* to shine before his
fairness, (Isa. xxiv. 23.) Base heavens, and excellent Jesus ;
weak angels, and strong and mighty Jesus ; foolish angel-wisdora,
and only wise Jesus ; short-living creature, and long-living and
ever-living Ancient of days ; miserable, and sickly, and wretched
are those things that are within time's circle, and only, only blessed
Jesus ! If ye can wind-in into his love, (and he giveth you leave
to love him, and allurements also,) — what a second heaven's par-
adise, a young heaven's glory, is it to be hot and burned with
fevers of love-sickness for him ? And the more your Ladyship
drink of this love, there is the more room, and the greater delight
and desire for this love. Be homely,^ and hunger for a feast and
1 Suspicious. 2 Hang. 3 Anticipated. * Are ashamed,
5 Lay aside all ceremony.
RUTHERFORD S LETTERS.
fill of his love ; for that is the borders and march ' of Heaven.
Nothins^ hath a nearer resemblance to the color and hue and lus-
tre of Heaven than Christ loved, and to breathe out love-words,
and love-sighs for him. Remember what he is. When twenty-
thousand millions of Heaven's lovers have worn their hearts
threadbare of love, all is nothing, yea, less than nothing, to his
matchless worth and excellency. Oh, so broad and so deep as the
sea of his desirable lovehness is ! Glorified spirits, triumphing
angels, the crowned and exalted lovers of Heaven, stand without
his loveliness, and cannot put a circle on it. Oh, if ^ sin and time
were from betwixt us and that royal King's love, that High Maj-
esty, eternity's Bloom, and Flower of high lustred beauty, might
shine upon pieces of created spirits, and might bedew and overflow
us, who are portions of endless misery, and lumps of redeemed
sin.
Alas ! what do I ? I but spill ^ and lose words in speaking
highly of Him who will bide and be above the music and songs
•of Heaven, and never be enough praised by us all ; to whose
boundless and bottomless love I recommend your Ladyship, and
am,
Your Ladyship's, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, March 27, 1640.
LETTER CCXCVH.
TO HIS REVEREND, AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. DAVID DICKSON.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — Ye look like the house
whereof ye are a branch ; the cross is a part of the life-rent, that
lieth to all the sons of the house. I desire to suffer with you, if
I could take a lift of your house-trial off" you ; but ye have
preached it ere I knew anything of God. Your Lord may gather
his roses, and shake his apples, at what season of the year he
pleaseth. Each husbandman cannot make harvest when he
pleaseth, as he can do. Ye are taught to know and adore his
sovereignty, which he exerciseth over you, which yet is lustred
with mercy. The child hath but changed a bed in the garden,
and is planted up higher, nearer the sun, where he shall thrive
better than in this out-field muir-ground.* Ye must think your
Lord would not want him one hour longer ; and since the date of
your loan of him was expired, (as it is, if ye read the lease,) let
him have his own with gain, as good reason were. I read on it
an exaltation and a richer measure of grace, as the sweet fruit of
your cross ; and I am bold to say, that that college where your
Master hath set you now, shall find it.
I am content that Christ is so homely ^ with my dear brother,
1 Boundary. 2 Oh, that. 3 Mar.
< Unenclosed, unmanured, and uncultivated, worthless ground.
5 Familiar, at home.
Rutherford's letters. 485
David Dickson, as to borrow and lend, and take and give with
hira ; and ye know what are called the visitations of such a friend
— it is to come to the house, and be lioniely' with what is yours.
I persuade myself, upon his credit, that he hath left drink-money,
and that he hath made the house the better of him. I envy not 2
his waking love, who saw that this water was to be passed through,
and that now the number of crosses lying in our way to glory are
fewer by one than when I saw you. They must decrease. It is
better than any ancient or modern commentary on your text, that
ye preach upon in Glasgow. Read and spell right, for he knoweth
what he doeth. He is only lopping and snedding^ a fruitful tree,
that it may be more fruitful. I congratulate heartily with you his
new welcome to your new charge.
Dearest brother, go on, and faint not. Something of yours is
in Heaven, beside tlie flesh of your exalted Saviour ; and ye go
on after your own. Time's thread is shorter by one inch than it
was. An oath is sworn, and past the seals, whether afflictions
will or not, ye must grow and swell out of your shell, and live,
and triumph, and reign, and be more than a conqueror. For your
Captain, who leadeth you on, is more than Conqueror, and he
maketh you partaker of his conquest and victory. Did not love
to you compel me, I would not fetch water to the well, and speak
to one who knoweth better than I can do what God is doing with
him.
Remember my love to your wife, to Mr. John, and all friends
there. Let us be helped by your prayers, for I cease not to make
mention of you to the Lord, as I can.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, May 28, 1640.
LETTER CCXCVni.
TO MY LADY BOYD.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — Impute it not to
a disrespective * forgetfulness of your Ladyship, who ministered to
me in my bonds, that I write not to you.
I wish that I could speak or write what might do good to your
Ladyship ; especially now, when I think we cannot but have deep
thoughts of the deep and bottomless ways of our Lord, in taking
away, with a sudden and wonderful stroke, your brethren and
friends. Ye may know, that all who die for sin, die not in sin :
and that " none can teach the Almighty knowledge." He an-
swereth none of our courts, and no man can say, " What doest
thou?" It is true that your brethren saw not many summers, but
adore and fear the sovereignty of the great Potter, who maketh
and marreth his clay-vessels, when and how it pleaseth him.
1 Familiar, at home. 2 Grudge not at. ^ Pruning. * Disrespectful.
486 Rutherford's letters.
The undei-garden is absolutely his own, and all that groweth
in it. His absolute liberty is law-biding.' The flowers are his
own. If some be but summer-apples, he may pluck them down
before others. Oh, what wisdom is it to believe, and not to dis-
pute ; to subject the thoughts to his court, and not to repine at
any act of his justice? He hath done it, all flesh be silent ! It is
impossible to be submissive and religiously patient, if ye stay your
thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second
causes : as, " Oh, the place !" " Oh, the time !" " Oh, if this had
been, this had not followed !" " Oh, the linking of this accident
with this time and place !" Look up to the master-motion and
the first wheel. See and read the decree of Heaven and the Cre-
ator of man, who breweth death to his children and the manner
of it. And they see far into a mill-stone, and have eyes that
make a hole to see through the one side of a mountain to the
other, who can take up his ways. " How unsearchable are his
judgments, and his ways past finding out !" His providence halt-
eth not, but goeth with even and equal legs ; yet are they not the
greatest sinners upon whom the tower of Siloam fell. Was not
time's lease expired, and the sand of Heaven's sand-glass,^ set by
our Lord, run out? Is not he an unjust debtor who payeth due
debt with chiding? I believe. Christian Lady, your faith leaveth
that 3 much charity to our Lord's judgments as to believe, howbeit
ye be in blood sib^ to that cross, that yet ye are exempted and
freed from the gall and wrath that is in it. I dare not deny but,
(Job xviii. 15,) " the King of terrors dwelleth in the wicked man's
tabernacle: brimstone shall be scattered on his habitation;" yet,
madam, it is safe for you to live upon the faith of His love whose
arrows are over-watered^ and pointed with love and mercy to his
own, and who knoweth how to take you and yours out of the roll
and book of the dead. Our Lord hath not the eyes of flesh in
distributing wrath to the thousandth generation without exception.
Seeing ye are not under the Law, but under grace, and married
to another Husband ; wrath is not the court that you are liable to.
As I would not wish, neither do I believe, that your Ladyship
doth despise, so neither faint. Read and spell aright all the words
and syllables in the visitation, and miscall^ neither letter nor syl-
lable in it. Come along with the Lord, and see, and lay no more
weight upon the Law than your Christ hath laid upon it. If the
Law's bill get an answer from Christ, the curses of it can do no
more. And I hope you have resolved, that, if he should grind you
to powder, your dust and powder will believe his salvation.
And who can tell what thoughts of love and peace our Lord
hath to your children ? I trust he will make them famous in ex-
ecuting the written judgments upon the enemies of the Lord :
" this honor have all the saints," (Psal. cxlix, 9,) and that they
shall bear stones on their shoulders for building that fair city, that
is called, (Ezek. xlviii. 35,) " The Lord is there." And happy shall
1 Will abide or endure trial of law. 2 Hour-glass. ^ So.
* Akin. 6 Plated over. * Misname.
Rutherford's letters. 487
they be who have a hand in the sacking of Babel, and come out
in the year of vengeance, for the controversy of Zion against the
land of graven images. Therefore, madam, let the Lord make
out of your Fathers house any work, even of judgment, that he
pleaseth. What is wrath to others, is mercy to you and your
house. It is faith's work to claim and challenge loving-kindness
out of all the roughest strokes of God. Do that for the Lord
which ye will do for time ; time will calm your heart at that which
God hath done, and let our Lord have it now. What love ye did
bear to friends now dead, seeing they stand now in no need of it,
let it fall as just legacy to Christ. Oh, how sweet to put out
many strange lovers, and to put in Christ? It is much for our
half-slain alfections to part with that which we believe we have
right unto: but the servant's will should be our will, and he is the
best servant who retaineth least of bis own will, and most of his
Master's.
That much wisdom must be ascribed to our Lord, that he
knoweth how to lead his own in-through and out-through' the
little time-hells, and the pieces of time-during wraths in this life;
and yet keep safe his love without any blur upon the old and
great seal of free election. And, seeing his mountains of brass,
the mighty and strong decrees of free grace in Christ, stand sure,
and the covenant standeth fast forever as the days of Heaven,
let him strike and nurture. ^ His striking must be a very act of
saving ; seeing strokes upon his secret ones come from the soft
and heavenly hand of the Mediator, and his rods are steeped and
watered in that flood and river of love that cometh from the God-
man's heart of our soul-loving and soul-redeeming Jesus.
I hope that ye are content to frist ^ the cautioner * of mankind
his own conquest,^ Heaven, till he pay it to you, and bring you to
a state of glory, where he will never crook ^ a finger upon, nor lift
a hand to you again. And be content, and withal greedily cov-
etous of grace, the interest and pledge of glory. If I did not be-
lieve your crop to be on the ground, and your part of that Hea-
ven of the saints' heaven, white and ruddy, fair, fair, and beauti-
ful Jesus were come to the bloom and the flower, and near your
hook,'' I would not write this. But seeing time's thread is short,
and ye are upon the entry of Heaven's harvest, and Christ, the
field of Heaven's glory, is white and ripe-like, the losses that I
wrote of to your Ladyship are but summer-showers, that will only
wet your garments for an hour or two, and the sun of the New
Jerusalem shall quickly dry the wet coat — especially, seeing rains
of afi^liction cannot stain the image of God, or cause grace to cast
the color. And, since ye will not alter upon Him who will not
change upon you, I durst, in weakness, think myself no spiritual
seer, if I should not prophesy that daylight is near, when such a
morning-darkness is upon you ; and that this trial of your Chris-
tian mind towards Him whom you dare not leave, howbeit he
1 From side to side, in every direction. 2 Correct. 3 Grant delay in payment to,
* Surety. 5 Acquisition by purchase. ^ Lay. i Siclile.
488 Rutherford's letters.
should slay you, shall close with a doubled mercy. It is time for
faith to hold fast as mucli of Christ as ever ye had, and to make
the grip' stronger, and to cleave closer to him; seeing Christ
loveth to be believed in, and trusted to. The glory of laying
strength upon One that is mighty to save, is more than we can
think. That piece of service, believing in a smiting Redeemer,
is a precious part of obedience. Oh, what glory to him, to lay
over the burden of our Heaven upon Him that purchased for us
an eternal kingdom ! Oh, blessed soul, who can adore and kiss
his lovely free grace.
The rich grace of Christ be with your spirit.
Yours, at all obedience in Christ Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Oct. 15, 1640.
LETTER CCXCIX.
TO AGNES MACMATH.
Dear Sister, — If our Lord hath taken away your child, your
lease of him is expired ; and seeing that Christ would want him
no longer, it is your part to hold your peace, and worship and
adore the sovereignty and liberty that the Potter hath over the
clay, and pieces of clay-nothings, that he gave life unto. And
what is man, to call and summon the Almighty to his lower court
down here? "for he giveth account of none of his doings." And
if ye will take a loan of a child, and give him back again to our
Lord, laughing, as his borrowed goods should return to him ; be-
lieve that he is not gone away, but sent before ; and that the
change of the country should make you think, that he is not lost
to you, who is found to Christ ; and that he is now before you ;
and that the dead in Christ shall be raised again. A going-down
star is not annihilate, but shall appear again. If he hath casten '
his bloom and flower, the bloom is fallen in Heaven, into Christ's
lap. And as he was lent a while to time, so is he given now to
eternity, which will take yourself And the difference of your
shipping and his to Heaven and Christ's shore, the land of life,
is only in some few years, which weareth every day shorter, and
some short and soon-reckoned summers will give you a meeting
with him. But what, with him ? nay, with better company, with
the Chief and Leader of the heavenly troops, that are riding on
white horses, that are triumphing in glory.
If death were a sleep that had no wakening, we might sorrow ;
but our Husband shall quickly be at the bedsides of all that lie
sleeping in the grave, and shall raise their mortal bodies. Christ
was death's Cautioner,' who gave his word to come and loose all
the clay-pawns, and set them at his own right hand ; and our
Cautioner,^ Christ, hath an act of law-surety upon death to render
1 Grasp. 2 Shed. 3 Surety.
Rutherford's letters. 489
back his captives. And that Lord Jesus, who knoweth the turn-
ings and windings that are in that black trance' of death, hath
numbered all the steps of the stair up to Heaven. He knoweth
how long the turnpike ^ is, or how many pair of stairs high it is ;
for he ascended that way himself, (Rev. i. 18,) " I was dead, and
am alive." And now he liveth at the right-hand of God, and his
garments have not so much as a smell of death.
Your afflictions smell of the children's case. The bairns of
the house are so nurtured : and suffering is no new life, it is but
the rent of the son's ; bastards have not so much of the rent.^
Take kindly and heartsomely with His cross who never yet slew
a child with the cross. He breweth your cup : therefore drink it
patiently, and with the better will. Stay and wait on till Christ
loose the knot that fasteneth his cross on your back ; for he is com-
ing to deliver. And I pray you, sister, learn to be worthy of his
pains, who correcteth ; and let him wring, and be ye washen ; *
for He hath a father's heart and a father's hand, who is training
you up, and making you meet for the high hall. This school of
suffering is a preparation for the King's higher house ; and let all
your visitations speak all the letters of your Lord's summons.
They cry— 1. " O vain world !" 2. " O bitter sin !" 3. " O short
and uncertain time !" 4. " O fair eternity, that is above sickness
and death!" 5. "O kingly and princely Bridegroom, hasten
glory's marriage, shorten time's short-spun and soon broken thread,
and conquer sin !" 6. " O happy and blessed death, that golden
bridge laid over by Christ my Lord, between time's clay-banks and
Heaven's shore !" And the Spirit and the Bride say, " Come !"
and answer ye with them, " Even so, come, Lord Jesus ! Come
quickly !"
Grace be with you.
Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Oct. 15, 1640.
LETTER CCC.
TO MR. MATTHEW MOWAT.
Reverend and dear Brother, — What am I to answer you?
Alas ! my books are all bare, and show me little of God. I would
fain go beyond books into his house-of-love, to himself. Dear
brother, neither ye nor I are parties worthy of his love or knowl-
edge. Ah! how hath sin bemisted^ and blinded us, that we can-
not see him ? But for my poor self, I am pained and like to burst,
because he will not take down the wall, and fetch his uncreated
beauty, and bring his matchless, white, and ruddy face out of
Heaven once-errand,^ that I may have Heaven meeting me ere I
go to it, in such a wonderful sight. Ye know that majesty and
1 Long, narrow passage. 2 winding stair. ^ Heb. xii. 6, 7, 8.
* Washed. s Bewildered. * On the sole enand.
490 Rutherford's letters.
love do humble, because homely ' love to sinners dwelleth in him
witli majesty. Ye should give him all his own court-styles, his
high and Heaven-names. What am I, to shape conceptions of
my highest Lord? How broad, and how high, and how deep he
is, above and beyond what these conceptions are, I cannot tell?
but for my own weak practice, (which, alas ! can be no rule to one
so deep in love-sickness with Christ as ye are,) I would fain add
to my tlioughts and esteem of him, and make him more high, and
would wish a heart and love ten thousand times wider than the
utmost circle and curtain that goeth about the Heaven of heavens,
to entertain him in that heart, and with that love. But that
whicli is your pain, my dear brother, is mine also. I am con-
founded with the thoughts of him. I know that God is casten,
(if I may speak so,) in a sweet mould, and lovely image, in the
person of that Heaven's Jewel, the Man, Christ ; and that the
steps of that steep ascent and stair to the Godhead is the flesh of
Christ, the New and Living Way : and there is footing for faith in
that curious Ark of the humanity ; therein dwelleth the God-
head, married upon our humanity. I would be in Heaven, sup-
pose I had not another errand, than to see that dainty ^ golden
Ark, and God personally looking out at ears and eyes and a body,
such as we sinners have, that I might wear my sinful Jiiouth in
kisses on him for evermore ; and I know, all the Three blessed
Persons would be well pleased that my piece of faint and created
love should first coast upon the Man, Christ. I should see them
all through him.
I am called from writing by my great employments in this town,
and have said nothing. But what can I say of Him ? Let us go
and see.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, 1640.
LETTER CCCL
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship. — I am
heartily sorry that your Ladyship is deprived of such a husband,
and the Lord's Kirk of so active and faithful a friend. I know
your Ladyship long ago made acquaintance with that, wherein
Christ will have you to be joined in a fellowship with himself,
even with his own cross ; and hath taught you to stay your soul
upon the Lord's good-will, who giveth not account of his matters
to any of us. When he hath led you through this water that
was in your way to glory, there are fewer behind : and his order
in dismissing us, and sending us out of the market, one before
another, is to be reverenced. One year's time of Heaven shall
1 Affable. « Excellent.
Rutherford's letters. 491
swallow up all sorrows, even beyond all comparison. What then
will not a duration of blessedness so long as God shall live, fully
and abundantly recompense ? It is good that our Lord hath given
a Debtor, obliged by gracious promises, for more in eternity than
time can take from you. And I believe that your Ladyship hath
been now many years advising and thinking what that glory will
be, which is abiding the pilgrims and strangers on the earth, when
they come home, and which we may think of, love and thirst for,
but we cannot comprehend it nor conceive of it as it is, far less
can we over-think or over-love it. Oh, so long a Chapter, or rather,
so long a Volume as Christ is, in that Divinity of Glory ! There
is no more of him let down now, to be seen and enjoyed by his
children, than as much as may feed hunger in this life, but not
satisfy it. Your Ladyship is a debtor to the Son of God's cross,
that is wearing out love and affiance in the creature, out of your
heart by degrees ; or rather the obligation standeth to His free
grace who careth for your Ladyship in this gracious dispensation ;
and who is preparing and making ready the garments of salvation
for you ; and who calleth you with a new name, that the mouth
of the Lord hath named ; and purposeth to make you a crown of
glory, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God, (Isa. Ixii. 2, 3.)
Ye are obliged to frist' him more than one heaven; and yet he
craveth not a long day ; it is fast coming, and is sure payment.
Though ye gave no hire for him, yet hath he given a great price
and ransom for you: and if the bargain were to make again,
Christ would give no less for you, than what he hath already
given — he is far from rueing. I shall wish you no more, till time
be gone out of the way, than the earnest of that which he hath
purchased and prepared for you ; which can never be fully preached,
written, or thought of, since it hath not entered into the heart to
consider it.
So, recommending your Ladyship to the rich grace of our Lord
Jesus, I am, and rest, your Ladyship's,
At all respective 2 observance in Christ Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's.
LETTER CCCIL
FOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE, MY LADY BOYD.
Madam, — I doubt not but the debt of many more than ordinary
favors to this land, layeth guiltiness upon this nation. The Lord
hath put us in his books as a favored people, in the sight of the
nations ; but we pay not to him the rent of the vineyard : and we
might have had a gospel at an easier rate than this Gospel ; but
it would have had but as much life as ink and paper have. We
stand obliged to him, who hath in a manner forced his love on us,
and would but love us against our will.
I Grant delay in payment. 2 Respectful.
492 Rutherford's letters.
Anent* read prayers, madam, I could never see precept, promise,
or practice for them in God's word. Our Cliurch never allowed
them, but men took them up at their own choice. The word of
God maketh reading, (1 Tim. iv. 13,) and praying, (1 Thess. v. 17,)
two different worships. In reading, God speaketh to us, (2 Kings
xxii. 10, 11;) in praying, we speak to God, (Psal. xxii. 2, and
xxviii. 1.) I had never faith to think well of them. In my weak
judgment, it were good if they were out of tiie service of God. I
cannot think them a fruit" or effect of the Spirit of adoption, seeing
the user cannot say of such prayers, " Let the words of my mouth,
and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O
Lord, my strength and my Redeemer ;" which the servants of God
ought to say of their prayers. (Psal. xix. 14.) For such prayers
are meditations set down in paper and ink, and cannot be his
heart-meditations who useth them : the saints never used them,
and God never commanded them : and a promise to hear any
prayers, except the pouring out of the soul to God, we can never
read.
As for separation from a worship for some errors of a church —
the independency of single congregations, a church of visible
saints, and other tenets of Brownists, they are contrary to God's
word. I have a treatise at the press at London, against these
conceits, as things which want God's word to warrant them. The
Lord lay it not to their charge, who depart from the Covenant of
God with this land, to follow such lying vanities.
I did see lately your daughter, the Lady Ardross. The Lord
hath given her a child and deliverance.
Now, recommending your Ladyship to the rich grace of Christ,
I rest,
Yours, at all respective ^ observance in Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's.
LETTER CCCIII.
TO JAMES Murray's wife.
My very dear and worthy Sister, — You are truly blessed
in the Lord, however a sour world gloom ^ and frown on you, if
ye continue in the faith settled and grounded, and be not moved
away from the hope of the Gospel. It is good that there is a
heaven, and it is not a night-dream and a fancy : — it is a wonder
that men deny not that there is a heaven, as they deny there is
any way to it, but of men's making. You have learned of Christ
that there is a heaven ; contend for it, and for Christ : bear well
and submissively the hard thrust of this step-mother world, which
God will not have to be yours. I confess it is hard, and would
to God I were able to lighten you of your burden : but believe me,
1 Concerning. 2 Respectful ^ Lour.
Rutherford's letters. 493
this world, which the Lord will not have to be yours, is but the
dross, refuse, and scum of God's creation, the portion of the Lord's
poor hired servants, the movables, not the heritage ; a hard bone
cast to the dogs, holden out of the New Jerusalem, whereupon
they rather break their teeth, than satisfy their appetite. It is
your Father's blessing, and Christ's birthright, that our Lord is
keeping for you ; and persuade yourself also that, (if it be good
for them and you,) your seed also shall inherit the earth ; for that
is promised to them, and God's bond is as good as if he would
give every one of them a bond for thousand thousands. Ere ye
were born, crosses in number, measure, and weight, were written
for you ; and your Lord will lead you through them. Make Christ
sure, and the world, and the blessings of the earth shall be at
Christ's back and beck. I see many professors for the fashion,
professors of glass ; I would make a little knock of persecution
ding ' them in twenty pieces, and the world would laugh at the
sherds : therefore, make fast work ; see that Christ be the ground-
stone^ of your profession : the sore wind and rain will not wash
away this building ; this work hath no less date than to stand for
evermore. I should twenty times have perished in my affliction,
if I had not laid my weak back and pressing burden both upon
the Stone, the Corner-stone laid in Zion. I am not twice fain, (as
the proverb 2 is,) but once and forever, of this Stone. Now the
God of peace establish you to the day of the appearance of Jesus
Christ.
Yours, S. R.
St. Andrew's.
LETTER CCCIV.
FOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE LADY, MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam. — I am a little moved at your infirmity of body and
health ; I hope it is to you a real warning. " And if in tiiis life
only we had hope, we should be of all men the most miserable."
Sure the huge generations of the seekers of the face of Jacob's God
must be in a life above the things that are now much taking ^ with
us ; such as to see the sun, to enjoy this life in health, and some
good worldly accommodations too : — and, if we be making that
sure, it is our wisdom. The times would make any that love the
Lord, sick and faint, to consider how iniquity aboundeth and how
dull we are in observing sins in ourselves, and how quick-sighted
to find them out in others, and what bondage we are in ; and yet
very often, when we complain of times, we are secretly slander-
ing the Lord's work and wise government of the world, and rais-
ing a hard report of him. " He is good and doeth good," and all
his ways are equal.
1 Knock, dash. 2 Foundation.
3 Alluding to the Scottish proverb: — "He viaun be twice fain thai sits down on a
Btane ; namely, fain to sit down, and fain to rise up. < Much set by.
494 Rutherford's letters.
Madam, 1 have been holding out to some others, (oh, if I could,
to myself,) some more of this, to read and study God well, and
make the serious thoughts of a Godhead, and a Godhead in
Christ, the work, and the only work, all the day. Oh, we are
little with God ! and do all without God ! we sleep and wake
without him ; we eat, we speak, we journey, we go about worldly
business, and our calling without God ! and, considering what
deadness is upon the hearts of many, it were good that some did
not pray without God, and preach and praise, and read and con-
fer of God, without God. It is universally complained of, that
there is a strange deadness upon the land, and on the hearts of
his people. Oh, if we could help it ! but he that watereth every
moment his garden of red wine, must help it. I believe that he
will burn the briers and the thorns that come against him,
I desire to remember your Ladyship to God ; but little can I do
that way : his everlasting good-will be with you.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, July 24.
LETTER CCCV.
for the right honorable, my lady viscountess op
kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.^ — ^I am glad to
hear that your Ladyship is in any tolerable health ; and shall
pray that the Lord may be your Strength and Rock. Sure I am,
that he took you out of the womb; and you have been casten on
him from the breasts. I am confident, that he will not leave you
till he crown the work begun in you.
There is n©thing here, but divisions in the Church and Assem-
bly :^ for beside Brownists and Independents, (who, of all that dif-
fer from us, come nearest to walkers with God,) there are many
other sects here, of Anabaptists, Libertines who are for all opin-
ions in religion, fleshly and abominable Antinomians and Seekers
who are for no church-ordinances, but expect apostles to come
and reform churches ; and a world of others, all against the gov-
ernment of presbyteries, Luther observed, when he studied to re-
form, that two-and-thirty sundry sects arose, (of all which I have
named but a part, except those called Seekers, who were not then
arisen :) he said, God should crush them, and that they should
rise again ; both which we see accomplished. In the Assembly,
we have well-near ended the government, and are upon the power
of synods, and I hope near at an end with them ; and so I trust
to be delivered from this prison shortly. The King hath dissolved
the treaty of peace at Uxbridge, and adhereth to his sweet pre-
lates ; and would abate nothing, but a little of the rigor of their
courts and a suspending of laws against the ceremonies, not a tak-
' The Assembly of Divines at Westminster,
Rutherford's letters. 495
ing away of them. The not prospering of your armies there in
Scotland, is ascribed here to the sins of the land, and particularly
to the divisions and backslidings of many from the Cause, and the
not executing of justice against bloody Malignanls.
My wife, here under tlie physicians, remembereth her service to
your Ladyship. So recommending you to the rich grace of
Christ, I rest.
Your Ladyship's at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
London, March 4, 1644.
LETTER CCCVI.
FOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE, MY LADY BOYD.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I received your
letter on May 19th.
We are here debating, with much contention of disputes, for the
just measures of the Lord's Temple. It pleaseth God, that some-
times enemies hinder the building of the Lord's house; but now
friends, even gracious men, (so I conceive of them,) do not a little
hinder the work. Thomas Goodwin, Jeremiah Burroughs, and
some others, four or five, who are for the Independent way, stand
in our way, and are mighty opposites to presbyterial government.
We have carried through some propositions for the scripture-right
of presbytery; especially in the church of Jerusalem, (Acts ii. and
iv. and v. and vi. and xv.,) and the church of Ephesus, and are
going on upon other grounds of truth ; and, by the way, have
proven ' that ordination of pastors belongelh not to a single con-
gregation, but to a college of presbyters, whose it is to lay hands
upon Timothy and others, (I Tim. iv. 14 ; 1 Tim. v. 17 ; Acts
xiii. 1. 2, 3 ; Acts vi. 5, 6.) We are to prove, that one single con-
gregation hath not power to excommunicate, which is opposed, not
only by Independent men, but by many others. The truth is, we
have many and grieved spirits with the work : and for my part, I
often despair of the reformation of this land, which saw never any-
thing, but the high places of their fathers', and the renmants of
Babylon's pollutions ; and except that, " not by might, nor by
power, but by the Spirit of the Lord," I should think, God hath
not yet thought it time for England's deliverance : for the truth is,
the best of them almost have said, "A half-reformation is very fair
at the first :" which is no other thing than, " It is not yet time to
build the house of the Lord :" and for that cause, many houses,
great and fair in the land, are laid desolate.
Multitudes of Anabaptists, Antinomians, Familists, Separatists,
are here. The best of the people are of the Independent way.
As for myself, I know no more, if there be a sound Christian (set-
ting aside some, yea, not a few learned, some zealous and faithful
1 Proved.
496 Rutherford's letters.
ministers, whom I have met with,) at London, (though I doubt
not but there are many,) than if I were in Spain ; wliich maketh
me bless God, that the communion of saints, how desirable soever,
yet is not the thing, even that great thing, Christ and remission
of sins. If Jesus were unco,' as his members are here, I should
be in a sad and heavy condition.
The House of Peers are rotten men, and hate our Commission-
ers and our cause both : the life that is, is in the House of Com-
mons, and many of them also have their religion to choose. The
sorrows of a travailing woman are come on the land. Our army
is lying about York, and have blocked up them of Newcastle, and
six thousand Papists and Malignants, with Mr. Thomas Sydserf,
and some Scottish prelates; and if God deliver them into their
hands, (considering how strong the Parliament's armies are, how
many victories God hath given them since they entered into cov-
enant with him, and how weak the King is,) it may be thought
the land is near a deliverance : — but I rather desire it, than be-
lieve it.
We offered this day to the Assembly a part of a Directory for
worship, to shoulder out the Service-book:'^ it is taken into con-
sideration by the Assembly.
Your son Lindsay is well ; I receive letters from him almost
every week.
Yours, at all obedience in God, S. R.
London, May 25.
LETTER CCCVH.
TO MISTRESS TAYLOR.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — Though I
have no relation worldly or acquaintance with you, yet, (upon the
testimony and importunity of your elder son, now at London
where 1 am, but chiefly because I esteem Jesus Christ in you to
be in place of all relations,) 1 make bold, in Christ, to speak my
poor thoughts to you concerning your son lately fallen asleep in
the Lord, who was some time under the ministry of the worthy
servant of Christ, my fellow-laborer Mr. Blair, by whose ministry
I hope he reaped no small advantage. I know that grace rooteth
not out the affections of a mother, but putteth them on His wheel
who maketh all things new, that they may be refined : therefore,
sorrow for a dead child is allowed to you, though by measure and
ounce-weights. The redeemed of the Lord have not a dominion
or lordship over their sorrow and other affections, to lavish out
Christ's goods at their pleasure; "For ye are not your own, but
bought with a price;" and your sorrow is not your own, nor hath
he redeemed you by halves ; and, therefore, ye are not to make
1 Strange. 2 Book of Common Prayer.
Rutherford's letters. 497
Christ's cross no cross. He commandeth you to weep : and that
princely One who took up to Heaven with him a man's heart to
be a compassionate High-Priest, became your Fellow and Com-
panion on earth, by weeping for the dead, (John xi, 35.) And,
therefore, ye are to love that cross, because it was once on Christ's
shoulders before you : so that by his own practice, he hath over-
gilded and covered your cross with the Mediator's lustre. The
cup ye drink was at the lip of sweet Jesus, and he drank of it;
and so it hath a smell of his breath, and I conceive that ye love
it not tiie worse that it is thus sugared : therefore, drink and be-
lieve the resurrection of your son's body. If one coal of Hell
could fall off the exalted Head, Jesus — Jesus the Prince of the
kings of the earth — and burn me to ashes, knowing I were a
partner with Christ, and a fellow-sharer with him, (though the
unworthiest of men,) I think that I should die a lovely death in
that fire Avith him. The worst things of Christ, even his cross,
have much of Heaven from himself; and so hath your Christian
sorrow, being of kin to Christ in that kind. If your sorrow were
a bastard, and not of Christ's house, (because of the relation ye
have to him in conformity to his death and sufferings,) I should
the more compassionate your condition : but kind and compas-
sionate Jesus, at every sigh you give for the loss of your now
glorified child, (so I believe, as is meet,) with a man's heart crieth,
" Half mine."
I was not a witness to his death, being called out of the king-
dom; but, if ye will credit those whom I do credit, (and I dare
not lie,) he died comfortably. It is true, he died before he did so
much service to Christ on earth, as I hope and heartily desire that
your son Mr. Hugh, (very dear to me in Jesus Ciirist,) will do.
But that were a real matter of sorrow, if this were not to counter-
balance it, that he hath changed service-houses, but hath not
changed service or master, (Rev. xxii. 3,) "And there shall be no
more curse : but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in
it ; and his servants shall serve him." What he could have done
in this lower house, he is now upon that same service in the
higher house ; and it is all one, it is the same service and the
same Master, only there is a change of conditions. And ye are
not to think it a bad bargain for your beloved son, where he hath
gold for copper and brass, eternity for time. I believe that Christ
hath taught you, (for I give credit to such a witness of you, as
your son Mr. Hugh,) not to sorrow because he died. All the knot ^
must be, " He died too soon, he died too young, he died in the
morning of his life." This is all;, but sovereignty must silence
your thoughts. I was in your condition ; I had but two children,
and both are dead since I came hither. Tlie supreme and abso-
lute Former of all things, giveth not an account of any of his
matters. The good Husbandman may pluck his roses, and gather
in his lilies at midsummer, and, for aught I dare say, in the be-
ginning of the first summer month ; and he may transplant
1 All that prevents the line of this dispensation from running smoothly.
32
498 Rutherford's letters.
young trees out of the lower ground to the higher, where they
may have more of the sun, and more free air, at any season of
the year. What is that to you or me? the goods are his own.
The Creator of time and winds did a merciful injury, (if I dare
borrow the word,) to nature, in landing the passenger so early.
They love the sea too well, who complain of a fair wind and a
desirable tide, and a speedy coming ashore ; especially a coming
ashore in that land where all the inhabitants have everlasting joy
upon their heads. He cannot be too early in Heaven. His twelve
hours were not short hours. And withal, if ye consider this, had
ye been at his bed-side and should have seen Christ coming to
him, ye would not, ye could not have adjourned Christ's free love,
who would want him no longer.
And dying in another land, where his mother could not close
his eyes, is not much. Who closed Moses' eyes? and who put on
his winding-sheet ? For aught I know, neither father nor mother,
nor friend, but God only. And there is as expeditious, fair, and
easy a way betwixt Scotland and Heaven, as if he had died in
the very bed he was born in. The whole earth is his Father's ;
any corner of his Father's house is good enough to die in.
It may be that the living child, (I speak not of Mr. Hugh,) is
more grief to you than the dead. Ye are to wait on, if at any-
time God will give him repentance, Christ waited as long possi-
bly on you and me, certainly longer on me ; and if he should
deny repentance to him, I could say something to that ; but I
hope better things of him.
It seemeth that Christ will have this world your step-dame. I
love not your condition the worse ; it may be a proof that ye are
not a child of this lower house, but a stranger. Christ seeth it
not good only, but your only good, to be led thus to Heaven.
And think this a favor, that he hath bestowed on you free, free
grace, that is, mercy without hire ; — ye paid nothing for it. And
who can put a price upon anything of royal and pricely Jesus
Christ ? And God hath given to you to suffer for him the spoiling
of your goods. Esteem it as an act of free grace also. Ye are
no loser, having himself; and I persuade myself, that if ye could
prize Christ, nothing could be bitter to you.
Grace, grace be with you.
Your brother, and wellwisher, S. R.
London, 1645.
LETTER CCCVIII.
TO BARBARA HAMILTON,
Worthy Friend, — Grace be to you. — I do unwillingly write
unto you of that which God hath done concerning your son-in-
law ; only I believe, ye look not below Christ, and the highest and
most supreme act of Providence, which moveth all wheels. And,
Rutherford's letters. 499
certainly, what came clown enacted and concluded in the great
book before the throne, and signed and subscribed with the Hand
which never did wrong, should be kissed and adored by us. We
see God's decrees, when they bring forth their fruits, all actions,
good and ill, sweet and sour, in their time ; but we see not pres-
ently the after-birth of God's decree, namely, his blessed end, and
the good that he bringeth out of the womb of his holy and spot-
less counsel. We see his working, and we sorrow. The end of
his counsel and working lieth hidden, and underneath the ground,
and therefore, we cannot believe. Even amongst men, we see
hewn stones, timber, and an hundred scattered parcels and pieces
of an house, all under-tools,' hammers, and axes, and saws : yet
the house, the beauty and ease of so many lodgings and ease-
rooms,2 we neither see nor understand for the present ; these are
but in the mind and head of the builder, as yet. We see red earth,
unbroken clods, furrows and stones ; but we see not summer lilies,
roses, and the beauty of a garden. If ye give the Lord time to
work, (as often he that believeth not maketh haste, but not speed,)
his end is under ground ; and ye shall see it was your good, that
your son hath changed dwelling-places, but not his Master. Christ
thought good to have no more of his service here ; yet, (Rev.
xxii. 3,) " His servants shall serve him." He needeth not us nor
our service, either on earth or in heaven. But ye are to look to
Him who giveth the hireling both his leave ^ and his wages, for
his naked aim and purpose to serve Christ, as well as for his
labors. It is put up in Christ's account that such a laborer did
sweat forty years in Christ's vineyard ; howbeit he got not leave
to labor so long, because He who accepteth of the will for the
deed, counteth so. None can teach the Lord to lay an account —
he numbereth the drops of rain, and knoweth the stars by their
names, — it would take as much studying as to give a name to
every star in the firmament, great or small.
See Lev. x. 3, " And Aaron held his peace." Ye know his two
sons were slain, whilst they offered strange fire to the Lord. Com-
mand your thoughts to be silent. If the soldiers of Newcastle
had done this, ye might have stomached ; but the weapon was in
another hand. Hear the rod what it preacheth, and see the name
of God, (Micah vi. 9 ;) and know that there is somewhat of God
and Heaven in the rod. The majesty of the unsearchable and
bottomless ways and judgments of God is not seen in the rod, and
the seeing of them requireth the eyes of the man of wisdom. If
the sufferings of some other with you in that loss could ease you,
ye want them not. But He can do no wrong, He cannot halt ;
His goings are equal, who hath done it. I know our Lord aimeth
at mortification ; let him not come in vain to your house, and lose
the pains of a merciful visit, (xod, the Founder, never melteth in
vain, howbeit to us he seemeth often to lose both fire and metal.
But I know ye are more in this work than I can be. There is no
cause to faint or be weary.
1 Lesser tools. * Rooms for repose. s Discharge.
500 Rutherford's letters.
Grace be with you ; and the rich consolations of Jesus Christ
sweeten your cross, and support you under it. I rest,
Yours, in his Lord and Master, S. R.
London, Oct. 15, 1645.
LETTER CCCIX.
TO MISTRESS HUME
Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — If ye
have anything better than the husband of your youth, ye are
Jesus Christ's debtor for it ; pay not then your debts with grudg-
ing. Sorrow may diminish from the sweet fruit of righteousness ;
but quietness, silence, submission, and faith, put a crown upon
your sad losses. Ye know whose voice the voice of a crying rod
is, (Micah vi. 9.) The name and majesty of the Lord is written
on the rod ; read and be instructed. Let Christ have the room of
the husband. He hath now no need of you, or of your love ; for
be enjoyeth as much of the love of Christ, as his heart can be ca-
pable of. I confess that it is a dear-bought experience, to teach
you to undervalue the creature ; yet it is not too dear, if Christ
think it so. I know, that the disputing of your thoughts against
his going thither, the way and manner of his death, the instru-
ments, the place, the time, will not ease your spirits, except ye rise
higher than second causes, and be silent because the Lord hath
done it. If we measure the goings of the Ahiiighty and his ways,
the bottom whereof we see not, we quite mistake God. Oh, how
little a portion of God do we see ! He is far above our ebb ^ and nar-
row thoughts. He ruled the world in wisdom, ere we, creatures
of yesterday, were born, and will rule it when we shall be lodging
beside the worms and corruption. Only learn heavenly wisdom,
self-denial, and mortification by this sad loss. I know that it is
not for nothing, (except ye deny God to be wise in all he doeth,)
that ye have lost one in earth. There hath been too little of your
love and heart in Heaven, and, therefore, the jealousy of Christ
hath done this. It is a mercy that he contendeth with you and
all your lovers. I should desire no greater favor for myself than
that Christ laid a necessity, and took on such bonds upon himself:
— "Such a one I must have, and such a soul I cannot live in
heaven without," (John x. 16,) And, believe it, it is incompre-
hensible love, that Christ saith, "If I enjoy the glory of my
Father, and the crown of Heaven far above men and angels, I
must use all means, though ever so violent, to have the company
of such a one forever and ever." If, with the eyes of wisdom, as
a child of wisdom, ye justify your mother, the Wisdom of God,
(whose child ye are,) ye will kiss and embrace this loss, and see
much of Christ in it. Believe and submit ; and refer the income of
the consolations of Jesus, and the event of the trial to your heavenly
1 Shallow.
Rutherford's letters. 501
Father, who numbereth all youi* hairs. And put Christ into his
own room in your love ; it may be he hath either been out of liis
own place, or in a place of love, inferior to his worth. Repair
Christ in all his wrongs done to him, and love him for a Husband ;
and He that is a husband to the widow, will be that to you which
he hath taken from you.
Grace be with you.
Your sympathizing brother, S. R.
London Oct. 15, 1645.
LETTER CCCX.
TO THE VISCOUNTESS KEN MURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship. —
Though Christ lose no time ; yet, when sinful men drive his
chariot, the wheels of his chariot move slowly. The woman Zion,
as soon as she travailed, brought forth her children ; yea, (Isa.
Ixvi. 7,) " Before she travailed, she brought forth ; before her pain
came, she was delivered of a man child ;" yet the deliverance of
the people was with the woman's going with child seventy years —
that is more than nine months. There be many oppositions in
carrying on the work ; but I hope that the Lord will build his own
Zion, and evidence to us that it is done, "not by might nor by
power, but by the Spirit of the Lord."
Madam, I have heard of your infirmities of body, and sickness.
I know the issue shall be mercy to you ; and that God's purpose,
which lieth hidden under ground to you, is to commend the
sweetness of his love and care to you from your youth. And if
all the sad losses, trials, sicknesses, infirmities, griefs, heaviness
and inconstancy of the creature be expounded, (as sure I am
they are,) the rods of the jealousy of an Husband in Heaven, con-
tending with all your lovers on earth, (though there were millions
of them,) for your love, to fetch more of your love home to Heaven,
to make it single, unmixed and chaste, to the Fairest in Heaven
and earth, to Jesus the Prince of ages, ye will forgive (to borrow
that word,) every rod of God, and " not let the sun go down on
your wrath," against any messenger of your afflicting and correct-
ing Father. Since your Ladyship cannot but see that the mark
at which Christ hath aimed, these twenty-four years and above,
is, to have the company and fellowship of such a sinful creature,
in Heaven with him for all eternity ; and, because he will not,
(such is the power of his love,) enjoy his Father's glory, and that
crown due to him by eternal generation, without you, by name,
(John xvii. 24 ; x. 16; xiv. 3;) therefore, madam, believe no evil
of Christ : hsten to no hard reports that his rods make of him to
you : he hath loved you, and washed you from your sins — and
what would ye have more? Is that too little, except he adjourn
all crosses, till ye be where ye shall be out of all capacity to sigh
502 Rutherford's letters.
or be crossed? I hope that ye can desire no more, no greater, nor
more excellent suit, than Christ, and the fellowship of the Lamb
for evermore. And if that desire be answered in Heaven, (as I am
sure it is, and ye cannot deny but it is made sure to you,) the
want of these poor accidents, of a living husband, of many chil-
dren, of an healthful body, of a life of ease in the world, without
one knot in the rush, are nobly made up, and may be comfortably
borne.
Grace, grace be with your Ladyship.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
London, Oct. IG, 1645.
LETTER CCCXL
TO BARBARA HAMILTON.
Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I have
heard with grief, that Newcastle hath taken one more in a bloody
account, than before, even your son-in-law, and my friend ; but I
hope ye have learned that much of Christ as not to look to wheels
rolled round about on earth. Earthen vessels are not to dispute
with their Former. Pieces of sinning clay, may, by reasoning and
contending with the Potter, mar the work of Him " who hath his
fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem ;" as bullocks sweating
and wresthng in the furrow, make their yoke more heavy. In quiet-
ness and rest ye shall be saved. If men do anything contrary to
your heart, we may ask both, "Who did it?" and "What is
done ?" and " Why ?" When God hath done any such thing, we
are to inquire, " Who hath done it?" and to know that this com-
eth from the Lord, who is " wonderful in counsel ;" but we are
not to ask "What?" or "Why?" If it be from the Lord, as cer-
tainly there is no evil in the city without him, (Amos iii. 6,) it is
enough ; the fairest face of his spotless way is but coming, and ye
are to believe his works as well as his word. Violent death is a
sharer with Christ in his death, which was violent. It maketh
not much what way we go to Heaven : the happy home is all,
where the roughness of the way shall be forgotten. He is gone
home to a Friend's house, and made welcome ; and the race is
ended : time is recompensed with eternity, and copper with gold.
God's order is in wisdom. The husband goeth home before the
wife ; and the throng of the market shall be over ere it be long,
and another generation where we now are ; and at length, an
empty house, and not one of mankind shall be upon the earth ;
within the sixth part of an hour after, the earth and the works
that are therein shall be burnt up with fire. I fear more that
Christ is about to remove, when he carrieth home so much of his
plenishing' beforehand. We cannot teach the Almighty knowl-
1 Furniture.
Rutherford's letters. 503
edge. When he was directing ihe bullet against his servant, to
fetch out the soul, no wise man could cry to God, " Wrong,
wrong, Lord, for he is thine own." There is no mist over His
eyes who is '•' wonderful in counsel." If Zion be builded with
your son-in-law's blood, the Lord, (deep in counsel,) can glue to-
gether the stones of Zion with blood, and with that blood which is
precious in his eyes. Christ hath fewer laborers in his vineyard
than he had, but some more witnesses for his Cause and the Lord's
Covenant with the Three Nations. What is Christ's gain is not
your loss. Let not that which is his holy and wise will, be your
unbelieving sorrow.
Though I really judge that I had interest in his dead servant ;
yet, because he now liveth to Christ, I quit the hopes which I had
of his successful laboring in the ministry. I know he now praiseth
the grace that he was to preach : and if there were a better thing
on his head now in Heaven than a crown, or anything more ex-
cellent than Heaven, he would cast it down before His feet who
sitteth on the throne. Give glory, therefore, to Christ, as he now
doeth, and say, " Thy will be done."
The grace, and consolation of Christ be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
London, Nov. 15, 1645.
LETTER CCCXn.
TO A CHRISTIAN FRIEND, UPON THE DEATH OP HIS WIFE.
Worthy Friend, — I desire to suffer with you, in the loss of a
loving and good wife, now gone before, (according to the method
and order of Him, of whose understanding there is no searching
out,) whither ye are to follow. He that made yesterday to go
before this day, and the former generation, in birth and life, to have
been before this present generation, and hath made some flowers
to grow and die and wither in the month of May, and others in
June, cannot be challenged^ in the order he hath made of things
without souls ; and some order he must keep also here, that one
might bury another ; therefore, I hope, ye shall be dumb and
silent, because the Lord hath done it. What creatures or under-
causes do in sinful mistakes, are ordered in wisdom by your Father,
at whose feet your own soul and your Heaven lieth, and so the
days of your wife. If the place she hath left were any other than
a prison of sin, and the home she is gone to any other than where
her Head and Saviour is King of the land, your grief had been
more rational. But I trust your faith of the resurrection of the
dead in Christ to glory and inmiortality, will lead you to suspend
your longing for her, till the morning and dawning of that day,
when the Archangel shall descend with a shout, to gather all the
* Found fault with.
504 Rutherford's letters.
prisoners out of the grave up to himself. To beheve this is best
for you ; and to be silent, because He hath done it, is your wisdom.
It is much to come out of the Lord's school of trial wiser and
more experienced in the ways of God, and it is our happiness
when Christ openeth a vein, tliat he taketh nothing but ill blood
from his sick ones. Christ hath skill to do, and, (if our corruption
mar not,) the art of mercy in correcting. We cannot of ourselves
take away the tin, the lead, and the scum that remaineth in us ;
and if Christ be not Master-of-work, and if the furnace go its
lone,' (he not standing nigh the melting of his own vessel,) the
labor were lost, and the Founder should melt in vain. God
knoweth some of us have lost much fire, sweating and pains to
our Lord Jesus ; and the vessel is almost marred, the furnace and
rod of God spilled,^ and day-light burnt, and the reprobate metal
not taken away, so as some are to answer to the Majesty of God
for the abuse of many good crosses, and rich afflictions lost with-
out the quiet fruit of righteousness : — and it is a sad thing when
the rod is cursed, that never fruit shall grow on it. And except
Christ's dew fall down, and his summer-sun shine, and his grace
follow afflictions, to cause them to bring forth fruit to God, they
are so fruitless to us, that our evil ground — rank and fat enough
for briers — casteth up a crop of noisome weeds. "The rod," (as
the prophet sailh, Ezek. vii. 10, 11,) " blossometh, pride buddetli
forth, violence riseth up into a rod of wickedness :" — and all this
hath been my case under many rods, since I saw you.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
London, 1645.
LETTER CCCXIIL
TO A CHRISTIAN BROTHER.
Reverend, and beloved in the Lord, — It may be that I
have been too long silent, but I hope that ye will not impute it to
forgetfulness of you.
As I have heard of the death of your daughter, with heaviness
of mind on your behalf; so am I much comforted, that she hath
evinced to yourself and other witnesses the hope of the Resurrec-
tion of the dead. As sown corn is not lost, (for there is more
hope of that which is sown than of that wliich is eaten, 1 Cor.
XV. 42,) so also is it in the Resurrection of the dead ; the body
"is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in
dishonor, it is raised in glory." I hope that ye wait for the crop
and harvest, (1 Thes. iv. 14,) " for if we beheve that .Tesus died
and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God
bring with him." Then they are not lost who are gathered into
1 By itself alone. 2 Cost in vain. 3 Spoiled.
Rutherford's letters. 505
that Congregation of the First-born, and the General Assembly
of the Saints. Though we cannot outrun nor overtake them
that are gone before, yet we shall quickly follow them ; and the
difference is, that she hath the advantage of some months or
years of the crown, before you and her mother. And we do not
take it ill, if our children outrun us in the life of grace ; why
then are we sad, if they outstrip us in the attainment of the life
of glory ? It would seem that there is more reason to grieve that
children live behind us, than that they are glorified and die before.
All the difference is in some poor hungry accidents of time, less
or more, sooner or later ; so the godly child, though young, died
an hundred years old ; and ye could not now have bestowed her
better, though the choice was Christ's, not yours.
And I am sure, sir, ye cannot now say, that she is married
against the will of her parents. She might more readily, if alive,
fall into the hands of a worse husband : but can ye think that
she could have fallen into the hands of a better ? And if Christ
marry with your house, it is your honor, not any cause of grief,
that Jesus should portion any of yours, ere she enjoy your portion
— is it not great love? The patrimony is more than any other
could give ; as good a husband is impossible ; to say a better, is
blasphemy. The King and Prince of ages can keep them better
than ye can do. While she was alive, ye could intrust her to
Christ, and recommend her to his keeping ; now by an after-faith
ye have resigned her unto Him in whose bosom do sleep all that
are dead in the Lord. Ye would have lent her to glorify the
Lord upon earth, and he hath borrowed her, (with promise to re-
store her again, 1 Cor. xv. 53 ; 1 Thes. iv. 15, 16,) to be an organ
of the immediate glorifying of himself in Heaven. Sinless glori-
fying of God is better than sinful glorifying of him. And sure
your prayers concerning her are fulfilled. I shall desire, if the
Lord shall be pleased the same way to dispose of her mother, that
ye have the same mind. Christ cannot multiply injuries upon
you; if the fountain be the love of God, (as I hope it is, ) ye are
enriched with losses.
Ye knew all I can say better, before I was in Christ, than I can
express it. Grace be with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
London, Jan. 6, 1646.
LETTER CCCXIV.
TO A CHRISTIAN GENTLEWOJIAN.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — If death
which is before you and us all, were any other thing than a friendly
dissolution, and a change, not a destruction of life, it would seem
a hard voyage, to go through such a sad and dark trance,' so
1 Long, narrow passage.
506 Rutherford's letters.
thorny a valley, as is the wages of sin. But I am confident, the
way ye know, though your foot never trod in that black shadow.
The loss of life is gain to you. If Christ Jesus be the Period, the
End and Lodging-home, at the end of your journey, there is no
fear, ye go to a Friend. And since ye have had a communion
with him in this life, and he hath a pawn or pledge of yours,
even the largest share of your love and heart, ye may look death .
in the face with joy. If the heart be in Heaven, the remnant of '^
you cannot be kept the prisoner of the Second death. But though
he be the same Christ in the other life, that ye found him to be
here, yet he is so far in his excellency, beauty, sweetness, irradia-
tions and beams of majesty, above what he appeared here, when
he is seen as he is, that ye shall misken ' him, and he shall appear
a new Christ. And his kisses, breathings, embracements, the
perfume, the ointment of his name poured out on you, shall ap-
pear to have more of God, and a stronger smell of Heaven, of
eternity, of a Godhead, of majesty and glory there than here ; as
water at the fountain, apples in the orchard and beside the tree,
have more of their native sweetness, taste and beauty, than when
transported to us some hundred miles.
I mean not that Christ can lose any of his sweetness in the
carrying, or that he in his Godhead and loveliness of presence,
can be changed to the worse, betwixt the little spot of the earth
that ye are in, and the right hand of the Father, far above all
heavens : but the change will be in you, when ye shall have new
senses, and the soul shall be a more deep and more capacious ves-
sel, to take in more of Christ ; and when means, the chariot, the
Gospel, that he is now carried in, and ordinances that convey him,
shall be removed. Sure ye cannot now be said to see him face to
face ; or to drink of the wine of the highest fountain, or to take
in seas and tides of fresh love immediately, without vessels mid-
ses,2 or messengers, at the Fountain itself, as ye will do a few
days hence, when ye shall be so near as to be with Christ, (Luke
xxiii. 43 ; John xvii. 24; Phil. i. 23 ; 1 Thes. iv. 17.)
Ye would, no doubt, bestow a day's journey, yea, many days'
journey on earth, to go up to Heaven, and fetch down anything
of Clirist ; how much more may ye be willing to make a journey
to go in person to Heaven, (it is not lost time, but gained eternity,)
to enjoy the full Godhead? — and then, in such a manner as he is
there, not in his week-days' apparel, as he is here with us, in a
drop or the tenth part of a night's dewing of grace and sweetness;
but he is there in his marriage-robe of glory, richer, more costly,
more precious, in one hem or button of that garment of Fountain-
majesty than a million of worlds. Oh, the well is deep! Ye
shall then think that preachers, and sinful ambassadors on earth,
did but spilP and mar his praises, when they spoke of him, and
preached his beauty. Alas ! we but make Christ black and less
lovely, in making such insignificant, and dry, and cold, and low
expressions of his highest and transcendent super-excellency to
1 Not recognize. 2 Mediums. 3 Spoil
Rutherford's letters. 507
the daughters of Jerusalem. Sure, I have often, for my own part,
sinned in this thing. No doubt angels do not fulfil their task
according to their obligation, in that Christ kept their feet from
falling with the lost devils ; though I know they are not behind
in going to the utmost of created power — but there is sin in our
praising, and sin in the quantity, besides other sins. But I must
leave this ; it is too deep for me. Go and see, and we desire to go
with you ; but we are not masters of our own diet. If in that last
journey ye tread on a serpent in the way, and thereby wound
your heel, as Jesus Christ did before you, the print of the wound
shall not be known at the resurrection of the just.
Death is but an awsome ' step over time and sin to sweet Jesus
Christ, who knew and felt the worst of death ; for death's teeth
hurt him. We know death hath no teeth now, no jaws, for they
are broken. It is a free prison, citizens pay nothing for the grave ;
the jailer, who had the power of death, is destroyed : — praise and
glory be to the First-begotten of the dead.
The worst possible that may be, is, that ye leave behind you,
children, husband, and the Church of God in miseries; but ye
cannot get them to Heaven with you for the present. Ye shall
not miss them, and Christ cannot miscount one of the poorest of
his lambs. No lad, no girl, no poor one shall be a-missing, ere ye
see them again, in the day that the Son shall render up the
Kingdom to his Father.
The evening and the shadow of every poor hireling is coming.
The sun of Christ's Church in this life is declining low. Not a
soul of the militant company will be here within a few generations ;
our Husband will send for them all. It is a rich mercy that we
are not married to time, longer than the course be finished. Ye
may rejoice, that ye got not to Heaven till ye knew that Jesus is
there before you ; that when ye come thither, at your first entry
ye may feel the smell of his ointments, his myrrh, aloes, and
cassia. And this first salutation of his, Avill make you find it is no
uncomfortable thing to die. Go and enjoy your gain ; live on
Christ's love while ye are here, and all the way. As for the
Church which ye leave behind you, the government is upon
Christ's shoulders, and he will plead for the blood of his saints.
The bush hath been burning above five thousand years, and we
never yet saw the ashes of this fire: yet a little while, and the
vision shall not tarry; it will speak and not lie. I am more afraid
of my duty, than of the Head, Christ's government. He cannot
fail to bring judgment to victory. Oh, that we could wait for our
hidden life ! Oh, that Christ would remove the covering, draw
aside the curtain of time, and rend the Heavens, and come down !
Oh, that shadows and night were gone, that the day would break,
and that he who feedeth among the lilies, would cry to his heav-
enly trumpeters, " Make ready, let us go down and fold together the
four corners of the world, and marry the bride !" — His grace be
with you.
I Awful.
508 Rutherford's letters.
Now, if I have found favor with you, and if ye judge me faith-
ful, my last suit to you is tliat ye would leave me a legacy, and
that is, that my name may be at the very last in your prayers ; as
I desire also, it may be in the prayers of those of your Christian
acquaintance with whom ye have been intimate.
Your brother, in his own Lord Jesus, S. R.
London, Jan. 9, 1646.
LETTER CCCXV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — It is the least of
the princely and royal bounty of Jesus Christ, to pay a king's
debts, and not to have his servants at a loss. His gold is better
than yours, and his hundred-fold is the income and rent of Heaven,
and far above your revenues : ye are not the first who have casten
up your accounts that way. Better have Christ your factor than
any other ; for he tradeth to the advantage of his poor servants.
But if the hundred-fold in this life be so well told, — as Christ can-
not pay you with miscounting, or deferred hope, — oh, Avhat must
the rent of that Land be ! which rendereth every day and hour of
the years of long eternity, the whole rent of a year, yea, of more
than thousand thousands of. ages, even the weighty income of a
rich kingdom, not every summer once, but every moment. That
sum of glory will take you and all the angels telling.' To be a
tenant to such a Landlord, where every berry and grape of the
large field beareth no worse fruit than glory, fulness of joy, and
pleasures that endure for evermore ! I leave it to yourself to
think what a summer, what a soil, what a garden must be there ;
and what must be the commodities of that highest land, where
the sun and the moon are under the feet of the inhabitants.
Surely the land cannot be bought with gold, blood, banishment,
loss of father and mother, husband, wife, children.
We but dwell here, because we can do no better. It is need,
not virtue, to be sojourners in a prison ; to weep and sigh, and,
alas ! to sin sixty or seventy years in a land of tears. The fruits
that grow here are all seasoned and salted with sin. Oh, how
sweet is it, that the company of the first-born should be divided
into two great bodies of an army, and some in their country, and
some in the way to their country ! If it were no more than once
to see the face of the Prince of this good land, and to be feasted
for eternity with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the rays and
beams of matchless glory, and incomparable fountain-love, it were
a well-spent journey to creep hands and feet through seven deaths
and seven hells, to enjoy him up at the well-head. Only let us
not weary — the miles to that land are fewer and shorter than
1 To take one telling, to require all one's powers to tell.
Rutherford's letters. 509
when we first believed. Strangers are not wise to quarrel with
their host, and complain of their lodging. It is a foul way, but a
fajr home. Oh, that I had but such grapes and clusters out of
the land as I have sometimes seen and tasted in the place whereof
your Ladyship maketh mention ! but the hope of it in the end is a
heartsome * convoy in the way. If I see little more of the gold
till the race be ended, I dare not quarrel. It is the Lord ! — I hope
his chariot will go through these Three Kingdoms, after our suffer-
ing shall be accomplished.
Grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's, in Jesus Christ, S. R.
London, Jan. 26, 1646.
LETTER CCCXVI.
TO MR. J. G.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — I shall with my soul de-
sire the peace of these kingdoms, and I do believe it will at last
come, as a river and as the mighty waves of the sea ; but, oh,
that we were ripe and in readiness to receive it ! The preserving
of two or three, or four or five berries, in the outmost boughs of the
olive-tree, after the vintage, is like to be a great matter, ere all be
done ; yet I know that a cluster in both kingdoms shall be saved,
for a blessing is in it. But it is not, I fear, so near to the dawning
of the day of salvation, but the clouds must send down moe
showers of blood to water the vineyard of the Lord, and to cause
it to blossom. Scotland's scum is not yet removed ; nor is England's
dross and tin taken away; nor the filth of our blood "purged by
the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning" — but I am" too
much on this sad subject.
As for myself, I do esteem nothing out of Heaven, and next to
a communion with Jesus Christ, more, than to be in the hearts and
prayers of the saints. I know that he feedeth there among the
lilies, till the day break : but I am at a low ebb, as to any sensible
communion with Christ ; yea, as low as any soul can be, and do
scarce know where I am ; and do now make it a question, if any
can go to Him whodwelleth in light inaccessible, through nothing
but darkness? Sure, all that come to Heaven, have a stock in
Christ ; but I know not where mine is. It cannot be enough for
me to believe the salvation of others, and to know Christ to be the
Honeycomb, the Rose of Sliaron, the Paradise and Eden of the
saints and first-born written in Heaven, and not to see after the
borders of that Good Land. But what shall I say ? Either this
is the Lord making grace a new creation, where there is pure
nothing and sinful nothing to work upon, or I am gone.
I should count ray soul engaged to yourself, and others there
1 Gladsome.
510 Rutherford's letters.
with you, if ye would but cany to Christ for me a letter of cyphers '
and nonsense, (for I know not now to make language of my con-
dition;) only showing that I have need of his love: for I know
many fair and washen*^ ones stand now in white before the throne,
who were once as black as I am. If Christ pass his word to wash
a sinner, it is less to him, than a word to make fair angels of black
devils ! only let the art of free grace be engaged, I have not a
cautioner 3 to give surety, nor doth a Mediator, such as he is in all
perfection, need a mediator : but what I need, he knoweth. Only,
it is his depth of wisdom, to let some pass millions of miles over
score in debt, that they may stand, between the winning and the
losing, in need of more than ordinary free grace. Christ hath
been multiplying grace by mercy above these five thousand years ;
and the latter-born heirs have so much greater guiltiness, that
Christ hath passed moe experiments and multiplied essays of
heart-love on others, by misbelieving, after it is past all question,
many hundreds of ages, that Christ is the undeniable and now
uncontroverted Treasurer of multiplied redemptions. So now he
is saying, " The more of the disease there is, the more of Physi-
cian's art of grace and tenderness there must be." Only, I know,
that no sinner can put infinite grace to it, so as the Mediator shall
have difficulty or much ado, to save this or that man : — millions
of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.
I pray you, (remembering my love to your wife, and friends
there,) let me find that I have solicitors there amongst your ac-
quaintance ; and forget not Scotland.
Your brother, in Jesus Christ, S. R.
London, Jan. 30, 1646.
LETTER CCCXVII.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — It is too like that the Lord's controversy with these
two nations is but yet beginning, and that we are ripened and
white for the Lord's sickle.
For the particular condition that your Ladyship is in, another
might speak, (if they would say all.) of more sad things. If there
was not a Fountain of free grace to water dry ground, and an
uncreated Wind to breathe on withered and dry bones, we were
gone. The wheels of Christ's chariot to pluck us out of the
womb of many deaths, are winged like eagles. All I have, is, to
desire to believe, that Christ will show all good-will to save; and
as for your Ladyship, I know that our Lord Jesus carrieth on no
design against you, but seeketh to save and redeem you. He
lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to take you up. His
way of redeeming is ravishing and taking ; there are more mir-
1 Nothings. 2 Washed. 3 Surety.
Rutherford's letters. 511
acles of glorified sinners in Heaven, than can be on earth. Noth-
ing of you, madam, nay, not even your leaf, can wither.
Verily, it is a king's life to follow the Lamb. But when ye see
him in his own country at home, ye will think ye never saw him
before : " He shall be admired of all them that believe," (2 Thes.
1. 10.) Ye may judge how far all your now sad days, and toss-
ings, changes, losses, wants, conflicts, shall then be below you.
Ye look to the cross, — now it is above your head and seemeth to
threaten deatb, as having a dominion ; but it shall then be so far
below your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above it, that ye
shall have no leisure to lend one thought to old-dated ^ crosses, in
youth, in age, in this country or in that, from this instrument or
from another ; except it be to the heightening of your consolation,
being now got above and beyond all these.
Old age, and, "waxing old as a garment," is written on the
fairest face of the creation, (Psal. cii. 26.) Death, from Adam to
the Second Adam's appearance, playeth the king and reigneth
over all. The prime Heir died ; his children, whom the Lord
hath given, follow him : and we may speak freely of the life
which is here ; were it Heaven, there were not much gain in god-
liness— but there is a rest for the people of God. Christ-man pos-
sesseth it now one thousand six hundred years before many of
his members ; but it weareth not out.
Grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
LondoQ, Feb. 16, 1646.
LETTER CCCXVHL
TO THE LADY ARDROSS.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — It hath seemed
good, as I hear, to Him who hath appointed the bounds for the
number of our months, to gather in a sheaf of ripe corn, in the
death of your Christian mother, into his garner. It is the more
evident that winter is near, when apples, without violence of wind,
fall of their own accord off the tree. She is now above the win-
ter, with a little change of place, not of a Saviour; only she en-
joyeth Him now, without messages and in his own immediate
presence, from whom she heard by letters and messengers before.
I grant that death is to her a very new thing, but Heaven was
prepared of old ; and Christ, — as enjoyed in his highest throne,
and as loaded with glory, and incomparably exalted above men
and angels, having such a heavenly circle of glorified harpers and
musicians above, compassing the throne with a song, — is to her a
new thing ; but so new, as the first summer-rose, or the first fruits
of that heavenly field ; or as a new paradise to a traveller, broken
1 Antiquated.
512 Rutherford's letters.
and worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a long and
dirty way.
Ye may easily judge, madam, what a large recompense is made
to all her service, her walking with God, and her sorrows, with
the first cast of the soul's eye upon the shining and admirably
beautiful face of the Lamb that is in the midst of that fair and
white army which is there, and with the first draught and taste
of the Fountain of life, fresh and new at the well-head ; to say
nothing of the enjoying of that face, without date, for more than
this term of life which we now enjoy. And it cost her no more
to go thither, than to suffer death to do her this piece of service :
for by Him who was dead, and is alive, she was delivered from
the Second Death. What then is the First death to the Second '?
Not a scratch of the skin of a finger, to the endless Second Death.
And now she sitteth for eternity mail-free, ^ in a very considerable
land, which hath more than four summers in the year. Oh, what
spring-time is there ! Even the smelling of the odors of that
great and eternally blooming Rose of Sharon forever and ever !
What a singing life is there ! There is not a dumb bird in all
that large field ; but all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory,
dominion, to the High Prince of that new-found Land. And, ver-
ily, the land is the sweeter, that Jesus Ciuist paid so dear a rent
for it, and he is the glory of the Land : all which, I hope, doth
not so much mitigate and allay your grief for her part, (as truly
this should seem sufficient,) as the unerring expectation of the
dawning of that day upon yourself, and the hope ye have of the
fruition of that same King and Kingdom to your own soul. Cer-
tainly the hope of it, when things look so dark-like on both king-
doms, must be an exceedingly great quickening to languishing
spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery,
to have both a bad way all the day, and no hope of lodging at
night ; but he hath taken up your lodging for you.
I can say no more now ; but I pray that the very God of peace
may establish your heart to the end. 1 rest,
Madam, Your Ladyship's,
At all respective 2 obedience in the Lord, S. R.
London, Feb. 24, 1G46.
LETTER CCCXIX.
TO M. O.
Sir, — I can write nothing for the present concerning these
times, whatever others may think, but that which speaketh wrath
and judgment to these kingdoms. If ever ye, or any of that
land, received the Gospel in truth, (as I am confident ye and they
did,) there is here a great departure from that faith, and our suf-
1 Rent-free. 2 Respectful
Rutherford's letters. 513
ferings are not j^et at an end. However, I dare testify and die for
it, that once Chiist was revealed in the power of his excellency
and glory to the saints there, and in Scotland, of which I was a
witness. I pray God that none deceive you, or take the crown
from you. Hell, or the gates of Hell, cannot ravel, mar, nor undo,
what Christ hath once done amongst you. It may be. that I am
incapable of new liglit, and cannot receive that spirit whereof
some vainly boast ; but that " which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon, and our hands have handled," even " the
word of life," (IJohn i. 1,) hath been declared to you. Thousands
of thousands, walking in that light and that good old way, have
gone to Heaven, and are now before the throne. Truth is but
one, and hath no numbers. Christ and Antichrist are both now
in the camp, and are come to open blows. Christ's poor ship
saileth in the sea of blood, the passengers are so sea-sick of a
high fever, that they miscall^ one another: Christ, I hope, will
bring the broken bark to land. I had rather swim for life and
death on an old plank, or a broken board, to land with Christ,
than enjoy the rotten peace we have hitherto had. It is like that
the Lord will take a severe course with us, to cause the children
of the family to agree together. I conceive that Christ hath a
great design of free grace to these lands; but his wheels must
move over mountains and rocks. He never yet wooed a bride on
earth but in blood, in fire, and in the wilderne.^s. A cross of our
own choosing, honeyed and sugared with consolations, we cannot
have. I think not much of a cross, when all the children of the
house weep with me and for me; and to suffer when we enjoy
the communion of the saints, is not much ; but it is hard when
saints rejoice in the suffering of saints, and redeemed ones hurt,
yea, even go nigh to hate, redeemed ones.
I confess, I imagined, there had no more been such an affliction
on earth, or in the world, as that one elect angel should fight
against another; but, for contempt of the communion of saints,
we have need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of before.
The saints are not Christ ; there is no misjudging in him, there is
much in us ; and a doubt it is, if we shall have fully one heart,
till we shall enjoy one Heaven. Our star-hght hideth us from
ourselves, and hideth us from one another, and Christ from us all
— but he will not be hidden from us. I shall wish that all the
sons of our Father in that land were of one mind, and that they
be not shaken nor moved from the truth once received. Christ
was in that Gospel, and Christ is the same now that he was in
the prelates' time. That Gospel cannot sink ; it will make you
free, and bear you out. Christ, the subject of it, is the chosen of
God ; and cometh from Bozrah, with garments dyed in blood. Ire-
land and Scotland both must be his field, in which he shall feed
and gather lilies. Suppose, (which yet is impossible,) that some
had an eternity of Christ in Ireland, and a sweet summer of the
i Call abusive names,
33
514 Rutherford's letters.
Gospel, and a feast of fat things for evermore in Ireland, and that
one should never come to Heaven, it should be a desirable life :
the King's spikenard, Christ's perfume, his apples of love, his oint-
ments, even down in this lower house of clay, are a choice heaven.
Oh ! what then is the King in his own land ? where there is such
a throne, so many kings' palaces, ten thousand thousands of
crowns of glory, that want heads yet to fill them ! Oh, so much
leisure as shall be there to sing! Oh, such a Tree as groweth
there in the midst of that Paradise, where the inhabitants sing
eternally under its branches ! To look in at a window, and see
the branches burdened with the apples of life — to be the last man
that shall come in thither, were too much for me.
I pray you to remember me to the Christians there ; and re-
member our private covenant. Grace be with you.
Your friend, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
London, April 17, 1646.
LETTER CCCXX.
TO EARLSTON, ELDER.
Sir, — I know that ye have learned long ago, ere I knew any-
thing of Christ, that if we had the cross at our own election, we
would either have law-surety for freedom from it, or then,i we
would have it honeyed and sugared with comforts, so as the sweet
should over-master the gall and wormwood. Christ knoweth how
to breed the sons of his house, and ye will give him leave to take
his own way of dispensation with you ; and, though it be rough,
forgive him : he defieth you to have as much patience to him, as
he hath borne to you. I am sure that there cannot a dram-
weight of gall be less in your cup : and ye would not desire he
should both afflict you, and hurt your soul. When his people
cannot have a providence of silk and roses, they must be content
with such an one as he carveth out for them. Ye would not go
to Heaven but with company ; and ye may perceive that the way
of those who went before you was through blood, sufferings, and
many afflictions ; nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the door-
threshold of Paradise, bleeding to death. I do not think but ye
have learned to stoop, though ye (as others,) be naturally stiff;
and that ye have found that the apples and sweet fruits, which
grow on that crabbed tree of the cross, are as sweet as it is sour to
bear it: especially considering, that Christ hath borne the whole
complete cross, and that his saints bear but bits and chips: as the
apostle saith, "The remnants," or "leavings'"^ of the cross.
I judge you ten thousand times happy, that ever ye were grace's
debtor : for certainly Christ hath engaged you over head and ears
to free grace : and take the debt with you to eternity, Immanuel's
» Otherwise. 2 Col. i. 24.
Rutherford's letters. 515
highest Land, where ye find before you a houseful of Christ's ever-
lasting debtors — the less shame to you. Yea, and this lower king-
dom of grace is but Christ's hospital and guest-house of sick folks,
whom the brave and noble Physician, Christ, hath cured, upon a
venture of life and death. And, if ye be near the water-side, (as
I know ye are,) all that I can say is this, sir, that I feel by the
smell of that land which is before you, that it is a goodly country,
and it is well paid for to your hand ; and He is before you who
will heartily welcome you. Oh, to suck those breasts of full con-
solation above, and to drink Christ's new wine up in his Father's
house, is some greater matter than is believed : since it was brewed
from eternity for the Head of the house, and so many thousand
crowned kings. Rubs in the way, where the lodging is so good,
are not much.
He that brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of the
sheep, by the blood of the Eternal Covenant, estabhsh you to the
end.
Your friend and servant, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
London, May 15, 1646.
LETTER CCCXXL
TO HIS REVEREND AND WORTHY BROTHER, MR. GEORGE
GILLESPIE.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — I cannot speak to you : —
the way ye know ; the passage is free and not stopped ; the print
of the footsteps of the Forerunner is clear and manifest ; many
have gone before you. Ye will not sleep long in the dust before
the day break. It is a far shorter piece of the hinder-end of the
night to you than to Abraham and Moses ; beside all the time of
their bodies resting under corruption, it is as long yet to their day
as to your morning-light of awaking to glory ; though their spirits,
having the advantage of yours, have had now the fore-start of the
shore before you.
I dare say nothing against his dispensation. I hope to follow
quickly. The heirs, that are not there before you, are posting
with haste after you, and none shall take your lodging over your
head. Be not heavy. The life of faith is now called for : doing
was never reckoned in your accounts, (though Christ in and by
you hath done more, than by twenty, yea, an hundred gray-haired
and godly pastors ;) believing now is your last. Look to that word,
(Gal. ii. 20,) "Nevertheless I hve, yet not I, but Christ liveth in
me." Ye know the I that liivelh, and the I that liveth not ; it is
not single ye that live. Christ by law liveth in the broken debtor ;
it is not a life by doing or holy walking, but the living of Christ
in you. If ye look to yourself as divided from Christ, ye must be
more than heavy. All your wants, dear brother, be upon him :
ye are his debtor ; grace must sum and subscribe your accounts
516 Rutherford's letters.
as paid. Stand not upon items, and small or little sanctification.
Ye know that inherent holiness must stand by, when imputed is
all. I fear the clay house is a taking down and undermining :
but it is nigh the dawning ; look to the east, the dawning of the
glory is near. Your Guide is good company, and knoweth all the
miles, and the ups and downs in the way : — the nearer the morn-
ing the darker.
Some travellers see the city twenty miles off, and at a distance:
and yet within the eighth part of a mile they cannot see it. It is
all keeping, that ye would now have, till ye need it ; and if sense
and fruition come both at once, it is not your loss. Let Christ
tutor you as he thinketh good ; ye cannot be marred nor miscarry
in his hand. Want is an excellent qualification ; and " no money,
no price," to you, (who, I know, dare not glory in 5^our own right-
eousness,) is fitness warrantable enough to cast yourself upon Him
who justifieth the ungodly. Some see the gold once, and never
again till the race's end ; it is coming all in a sum together ; when
ye are in a more gracious capacity to tell it than now. "Ye are
not come to the mount that burneth with fire, or unto blackness,
darkness, and tempest; but ye are come to Mount Zion, unto the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innu-
merable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church
of the first-born which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the
Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling,"
etc.
Ye must leave the wife to a more choice Husband, and the
children to a better Father.
If ye leave any testimony to the Lord's work and Covenant,
against both Malignants, and Sectaries, (which I suppose may be
needful,) let it be under your hand, and subscribed before faithful
witnesses.
Your loving and afflicted brother, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Sept. 27, 1648.
LETTER CCCXXII.
TO MISTRESS GILLESPIE.
Dear Sister, — I have heard how the Lord hath visited you,
in removing the child Archibald. I hope ye see that the setting
down of the weight of your confidence and affection upon any
created thing, whether husband or child, is a deceiving thing ; and
that the Creature is not able to bear the weight, but sinketh down
to very nothing under your confidence. And, therefore, ye are
Christ's debtor for all providences of this kind, even in that he
buildeth an hedge of thorns in your way : for so ye see that his
gracious intention is to save you, (if I may say so,) whether ye
Rutherford's letters. 517
will or not. It is a rich mercy that the Lord Christ will be Master
of your will and of your delights, and that his way is so fair for
landing of husband and children beforehand in the country
whitherto ye are journeying. No matter how little ye be engaged
to the world, since ye have such experience of cross dealing in it.
Had ye been a child of the house, the world would have dealt
more warmly with its own. There is less of you out of Heaven,
in that the child is there, and the husband is there, but much
more that your Head, Kinsman, and Redeemer doth fetch home
such as are in danger to be lost. And from this time forward,
fetch not your comforts from such broken cisterns and dry wells :
if the Lord pull at the rest, ye must not be the creature that will
hold when he draweth.
Truly, to me your case is more comfortable than if the fire-side
were well plenished ^ with ten children. The Lord saw that ye
were able, by his grace, to bear the loss of husband and child :
and that ye are that*^ weak and tender as not to be able to stand
under the jnercy of a gracious husband, living and flourishing in
esteem with authority, and in reputation for godliness and learn-
ing : for he knoweth the weight of these mercies would crush you
and break you ; and as there is no searching out of his under-
standing, so he hath skill to know what providence will make
Christ dearest to you ; and let not your heart say, " It is an ill-
waled^ dispensation." Sure Christ, who hath seven eyes, had
before him the good of a living husband and children for Margaret
Murray, and the good of a removed husband and children trans-
lated to glory ; now that he hath opened his decree to you, say,
" Christ hath made for me a wise and gracious choice, and I have
not one word to say to the contrary." Let not your heart charge
anything, nor unbelief libel injuries vipon Christ because he will
not let you alone, nor give you leave to play the idolatress with
such as have not that right to your love that Christ hath. I
should wish that, at the reading of this, ye may fall down and
make a surrender of those that are gone, and of those that are
yet alive, to him : and for you, let him have all ; and wait for
himself, for he will come, and will not tarry. Live by faith, and
the peace of God guard your heart. He cannot die whose ye are.
My wife suffereth with you ; and remembereth her love to you.
Your brother, in Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's, August 14, 1649.
LETTER CCCXXIII.
TO THE WORTHY, AND MUCH HONORED COL. GILBERT KER.
Much honored, and truly Worthy, — I hope I shall not
need to show you, that ye are in greater hazard from yourself and
1 Replenished. 2 So, 3 Ill-selected.
518 Rutherford's letters.
your own spirit, which should be watched over, — that your actings
for God may be clean, spiritual, purely for God, for the Prince of
the kings of the earth, — than ye can be in danger from your ene-
mies. Oil, how hard is it, to get the intentions so cut olF from,
and raised above the creature, as to be without mixture of creature
and carnal interest, and to have the soul in heavenly actings, only
eying Himself, and acting from love to God, revealed to us in
Jesus Christ! Ye will find yourself, your delights, your solid
glory, (far above the air and breathings of mouths, and the thin,
short, poor applauses of men,) before you in God. All the crea-
tures, all the swords, all the hosts in Britain, and in this poor globe
of the habitable world, are but under him single cyphers making
no number of the product being nothing but painted men, and
painted swords in a brod,^ without influence from him. And,
oh, what of God is in Gideon's sword, when it is the sword of the
Lord !
1 wish a sword from Heaven to you, and orders from Heaven to
you to go out, and as much peremptoriness of a heavenly will, as
to say, and abide by it, " I will not, I shall not go out unless thou
goest with me." I desire not to be rash in judging; but I am a
stranger to the mind of Christ, if our adversaries who have un-
justly invaded us, be not now in the camp of those that make war
with the Lamb. But the Lamb shall overcome them at length ;
for he is the Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they who are
with him are called, and chosen and faithful. And though ye
and I see but the dark side of God's dispensations this day towards
Britain, yet the fair, beautiful, and desirable close of it must be the
confederacy of the nations of the world with Britain's Lord of
armies. And let me die in the comforts of the faith of this, that
a throne shall be set up for Christ in this island of Britain, (which
is, and shall be, a garden more fruitful of trees of righteousness,
and which payeth, and shall pay more thousands to the Lord of
the vineyard, than is paid in thrice the bounds of Great Britain
upon earth,) and then there can be neither papist, prelate, malig-
nant, nor sectary, who dare draw a sword against Him that sitteth
upon the throne.
Sir, I shall wish a clean army, so far as may be, that the shout
of a King who hath many crowns, may be among you ; and that
ye may tight in faith, and prevail with God first. Think it your
glory to have a sword to act, and suffer, and die, (if it please him,)
so being ye may add anything to the declarative glory of Christ,
the Plant of renown, Immanuel, God with us : happy and thrice
blessed are they by whose actings, or blood, or pain, or loss, the
diadems and rubies of his highest and most glorious crown, (whose
ye are,) shall glister and shine in tiiis quarter of the habitable
world. Though he need not Gilbert Ker, nor his sword ; yet this
honor have ye with his redeemed soldiers, to call Christ High Lord-
General, of whom ye hope for pay, and all arrears well told. Go
on, worthy sir, in the courage of faith, follow-in the Lamb ; make
1 Board.
Rutherford's letters. 519
not haste unbelievingly ; but in hope and silence keep the watch-
tower, and look out. He will come in his own time ; his salva-
tion shall not tarry, he will place salvation in Britain's Zion for
Israel's glory.
His good-will who dwelt in the bush, and it burned not, be
yours, and with you.
I am yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Aug. 10, 1650.
LETTER CCCXXIV.
TO THE WORTHY, AND MUCH HONORED COL. GILBERT KER.
Much honored, and worthy Sir, — What I wrote to you
before, I spake not upon any private warrant. I am where I was.
Cromwell and his army, (I shall not say, but there may be, and
are, several sober and godly among them, who have either
joined through misinformation, or have gone alongst with the rest
in the simplicity of their hearts, not knowing anything,) fight in
an unjust cause, against the Lord's secret ones ; and now, to the
trampling of the worship of God, and persecuting the people of
God in England and Ireland, he hath brought upon his score the
blood of the people of God in Scotland. I entreat you, dear sir,
as ye desire to be serviceable to Jesus Christ, whose free grace
prevented you, when ye w^ere his enemy, go on without fainting,
equally eschewing all mixtures with Sectaries^ and Malignants ;«
neither of the two shall ever be instrumental to save the Lord's
people, or build his house. And, without prophesying, or speak-
ing further than He whose I am, and whom I desire to serve in
the Gospel of his Son, shall warrant, I desire to hope and to be-
lieve there is a glory and a majesty of the Prince of the kings of
the earth, that shall shine and appear in Great Britain, which
shall darken all the glory of men, confound Sectaries and Malig-
nants, and rejoice the spirits of the followers of the Lamb, and
dazzle the eyes of the beholders.
Sir, I suppose that God is to gather Malignants and Sectaries,
ere all be done, as sheaves in a barn-floor ; and to bid the Daugh-
ter of Zion arise, and thresh. I hope that ye will mix with none
of them. I am abundantly satisfied, that our army, through the
sinful miscarriage of men, hath fallen ; and dare say, it is a bet-
ter and a more comfortable dispensation than if the Lord had
given us the victory and the necks of the reproachers of the way
of God, because he hath done it. For — 1. More blood, blasphemies,
cruelty, treachery, must be upon the accounts of the men, whose
land the Lord forbid us to invade. 2. Victory is such a burden-
ing and weighty mercy, that we have not strength to bear it as
yet. 3. That was not the army, nor Gideon's three hundred, by
> Independents. 2 Chevaliers.
520 RUTHERFORD S LETTERS.
whom he is to save us ; — we must have one of our Lord's carving".
4. Our enemies, on both sides, are not enough hardened, nor we
enouo-h mortified to muhitude, valor and creatures.
Grace, grace be with you.
Your friend and servant,
In his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Sept. 5, 1650.
LETTER CCCXXV.
A Letter from Mr. Samuel Rutherford to Mr. William
Guthrie, when the army was at Stirling^ after the defeat at
Dunbar,^ and the godly in the West were falsely branded
with intended com/pUance ivith the iisnrpers, about the time
when those debates and that difference concerning the Public
Resolutions, arose.
Reverend Brother, — I did not dream of such shortness of
breath, and fainting in the way toward our country : I thought
that I liad no more to do than die in my nest, and bow down ray
sinful head, and let Him put on the crown, and so end. I have
suffered much; but that is the thickest darkness, and the straitest
step of the way I have yet trodden. I see more suffering yet be-
hind, and I fear from the keepers of the vine. Let me obtain of
you, that you would press upon the Lord's people, that they would
stand far off from these merchants of souls, come in amongst you.
If the way revealed in the word be that way, we then know that
these soul-cowpers ^ and traffickers sliow not the way of salva-
tion. Alas ! alas ! poor I am utterly lost, my share of Heaven
is gone, and my iiope is perished, and I am cut off from the Lord,
if hitherto out of the wa3^ But I dare not judge kind Christ ;
for, if it may be but permitted, (with reverence to his greatness
and highness, be it spoken,) I will, before witnesses, produce his
own hand, that he said, " This is the way, walk thou in it," — and
he cannot except against his own seal. I profess that I am al-
most broken and a little sleepy, and would fain put off this body :
but this is my infirmity, who would be under the shadow and
covert of that Good Land, once to be without the reach and blast
of the terrible One. But I am a fool : there is none that can
overbid, or take my lodging over my head, since Christ hath taken
it for me.
Dear brother, help me, and get me the help of their prayers
who are with you, in whom is my delight. You are much sus-
pected of intended compliance ; I mean not of you, only, but of
all the people of God with you. It is but a poor thing, the fulfil-
ling of my joy ; but let me obtest all the serious seekers of his
face, his secret sealed ones, by the strongest consolations of the
1 On September 3rd, 1650. 2 Soul-jobbers.
Rutherford's letters. 521
Spirit, by the gentleness of Jesus Christ, that Plant of renown,
by your last accounts, and appearing before God, when the white
throne shall be set up, be not deceived with their fair words.
Though my spirit be astonished at the cunning distinctions, which
are found out in the matters of the Covenant, that help may be
had against these men ; yet my heart trembleth to entertain the
least thought of joining with those deceivers.
Grace, grace be with you. Amen.
Your own brother, in our common Lord and Saviour, S. R.
St. Andrew's.
LETTER CCCXXVL
TO THE WORTHY, AND MUCH HONORED COL. GILBERT KER.
Much honored, and worthy Sir, — It is worthy of con-
sideration, that the Lord may, and often doth call to a work, and
yet hide himself, and try the faith of his own. If I conceive
aright, the Lord hath called you to act against that enemy ; and
the withdrawers of their sword, in my weak apprehension, add
their zeal unto, and take upon them the guilt of that unjust in-
vasion of this land made by Cromwell's army, and of the blood
of the Lord's people in this kingdom ; since the sword, put into
the hand of his children, is to execute wrath and vengeance upon
evil-doers. The Lord's time of appearing for his broken land is
reserved to the breathings of the Spirit of the Lord, such as came
upon Gibeon and Samson ; and that is an act of princely and
royal sovereignty in God. Ye are, sir, to lay hold on opportuni-
ties of Providence, and to wait for him.
As for your particular treating by yourselves with the invaders
of our land, I have no mind to it, and do look upon their way
as a carrying on of the Mystery of Iniquity, (for Babylon is a
seat of many names.) Sir, let this controversy stand undecided
till the Second Appearance of Jesus Christ, and our appeal
lie before the throne undiscussed till that day. I hope to lie down
in the grave in tli^ faith of the justness of our cause. I speak
nothing of the maintaining the greatness of men, not subordinate
to the Prince of the kings of the earth. I judge that the blood
of the witnesses of Jesus is found upon the skirts of this society,
as well as in Babylon's skirts. I believe that the way of the
Lord is Colonel Gilbert Ker's strength and glory ; and I should be
content to want my part of him, (which is, I confess, precious
and dear in Christ,) so that he be spent in the service of Him
who will anon make inquisition for the blood of the truly godly,
which these men have shed, after fair warning that they were
the godly of Scotland.
Worthy sir, believe, faint not, set your shoulder under the
glory of Jesus, that is misprised in Scotland, and give a testimony
522 Rutherford's letters.
for him — he hath many names in Scotland, who shall walk with
him in white. This despised Covenant shall ruin Malignants,
Sectaries, and Atheists. Yet a little while, and behold he cometh,
and wallceth in the greatness of his strength, and his garments
dyed with blood. Oh, for the sad and terrible day of the Lord
upon England, their ships of Tarshish, their fenced cities, etc.,
because of a broken Covenant ! ,
A conference with the enemy, not to hinder acting, (Oh, that
the Lord would thereby, or by some other way, remove the cloud
that is over you,) if authority should concur, were to be desired ;
but it can hardly be expected : however, in the way of duty, and
in the silence of faith, go on ; if ye perish, ye are the first of the
creation with whom the Lord hath taken that dispensation. I
should humbly desire you, sir, to look to that, "Dying, and be-
hold we live ; killed all the day long, and yet more than conquer-
ors." There shall be the heat and warmness of life in your
graves and buried bones ; but look not for the Lord's coming the
higher way only, for he may come the lower way. Oh, how
little of God do we see, and how mysterious is he ! Christ known
is amongst the greatest secrets of God. Keep yourself in the
love of God, and, in order to that, as far in obedience and subjec-
tion to the King, (whose salvation and true happiness my soul
desireth,) and to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, and
to the fundamental laws of this kingdom, as your Lord requireth.
Sir, ye are in the hearts and prayers of the Lord's people in this
kingdom, and in the other two. The Lord hath said, " There is
a blessing in the cluster of grapes, destroy it not."
Grace, grace be upon the head of him that is separated from
his brethren ; and the good-will of Him that dwelt in the bush,
be with you.
Your servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Perth, Nov. 23, 1650.
LETTER CCCXXVII.
TO THE MUCH HONORED, AND TRULY WORTHY COLONEL GIL-
BERT KER.
(Habakkuk ii. 3, 4.)
Much honored, and worthy Sir, — Your chains now shine
as much for Christ, the cause being his, as your sword was made
famous in acting for that cause ; and blessed are such as can wil-
lingly tender to Christ both action and blood, doing and suffering.
Resisting unto blood is little for that precious and never-enough
exalted Redeemer, who, when ye were a-buying, gave blood some-
what dearer than ye gave for him, even the blood of God, (Acts
XX. 28.) I know a man, who, upon the receipt of a letter, that ye
were killed and the people of God destroyed, wished that he might
Rutherford's letters. 523
be quickly under the wall of the higher palace, from under the
dint of the storm, and who longed to have the weather-beaten and
crazy bark safely landed in that harbor of eternal quietness.
What further service Christ hath for you, I know not; it is
enough, that in your captivity ye offer your service to Christ — but,
if I see anything, it looketh like a merciful defeat. I see the no-
bles and the State falling off from Christ, and the night coming
upon the prophets, which we should pray to prevent : because it is
a rare thing to see a fallen star win ^ ever up again to the firmament
to shine. And what if this be the thick darkness going before
the break of day? Sure, sir, the sun shall rise upon Scotland ;
but if I shall see it, or how near it is to that day, I leave that to
Him, even unto Jehovah, who "createlh upon every dwelling-
place in Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies a cloud, and a
smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night." But,
sir, " the wilderness shall rejoice and blossom as a rose :" and
happy he, who hath a bone or an arm, to put the crown upon the
head of our highest King whose chariot is paved with love. Were
there ten thousand millions of heavens created above these high-
est Heavens, and again as many above them, and as many above
them till angels were wearied with counting, it were but too low
a seat to fix the princely throne of that Lord Jesus, (whose ye are,)
above them all :— created heavens are too low a seat of majesty
for him. Since then, there is none equal to your Master and
Prince who hath chosen out for you amongst many sufferings for
sin, that only cross, which cometh nearest in likeness to his own
cross, watered^ with consolation, take courage, and comfort your-
self in Him who hath chosen you to glory hereafter, and to con-
formity with him here. We fools would have a cross of our own
choosing, and would have our gall and wormwood sugared, our
fire cold, and our death and grave warmed with heat of life ; but
He who hath brought many children to glory, and lost none, is
our best Tutor. I wish that when I am sick, he may be keeper
and comforter. I judge it a blessed fall, that we are forfeited heirs,
broken and out of credit, and that Christ is become a Tutor in the
place of Free-will, and that we are no more our own. I am broken
and wasted with the wrath that is on the land, and have been
much tempted with a design to have a pass from Christ, which if
I had, I would not stay to be a witness of our defection, for no
man's entreaty. But I know it is my softness and weakness, who
would ever be ashore, when a fit of sea-sickness cometh on : though
I know I shall come soon enough to that desirable country, and
shall not be displaced, — none shall take my lodging.
Sir, many eyes are upon you, and the godly are exceedingly
refreshed, that ye listen not to the ways of many about you, who
with fair words make merchandise of souls. Sir, if the way you
are in, be not the way of Christ, then woe to me, for I am eternally
lost ; but truly, the Lord Christ's dealings with Colonel Gilbert
Ker hath proven^ to me, that the New Testament and the Cov-
1 Get. 2 Plated. 3 Proved,
524 Rutherford's letters.
enant of Grace is a piece, that a solemn meeting and assembly
of all created angels, join all their wits together, could not have
devised. Since, sir, ye paid nothing for the change that Christ
made, and ye will take that debt of free grace to Heaven with you,
(for what was Christ Jesus indebted to you, more than to all your
kindred and name !) therefore, since ye are made his ow^n, follow
no other way. What is my salvation, though I should lay it in
pawn, (it is but a poor pledge,) that this, this only is the way? but
Christ is surety himself, that it is the way. The Forerunner went
before you, and he is safely landed, and there is a fair company
before you ot such as " have come out of great tribulation, and
have washed their garments, and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb ;" to whom these promises are now performed, " He
that overcometh, shall eat of the Tree of life, that is in the midst
of the Paradise of God ; and God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain. He that sitteth on
the throne shall dwell among them ; they shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor
any heat ; for the Lamb, that is in the midst of the throne, shall
feed them, and shall take them unto living fountains of waters."
I may, sir, possibly keep you from better work. The God of
peace, that brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the Eternal Covenant, make you
perfect.
Yours, in Jesus Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Jan. 7, 1651.
LETTER CCCXXVIIL
TO THE MUCH HONORED, AND TRULY WORTHY COLONEL GIL-
BERT KER.
Much honored, and worthy Sir, — I have heard of your
continued captivity in England, as well as in this atHicted land ;
but, go where ye will, ye cannot go from under your Shadow,
which is broader than many kingdoms. Ye change lodging and
countries; but the same Lord is before you; if ye were carried
away captive to the other side of the sun, or as far as the rising of
the morning star. It is spoken to your Mother, who hath yet re-
ceived no bill of divorce, which was written to Judah, (Micah iv. 10,)
" Be in pain, and labor to bring forth, O Daughter of Zion, like a
woman in travail : for now shall thou go forth out of the city, and
thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon,
there shalt thou be delivered : there the Lord shall redeem thee
from the hand of thine enemies." England shall be accountable
for you, to render you back ; (Isa. xliii. 6,) " I will say to the
north, ' Give up ;' and to the south, ' Keep not back.' " It is a ser-
mon that flesh and blood laugheth at ; (Ezek. xxxvii. 4,) " Proph-
Rutherford's letters. 525
"esy upon these dry bones, and say unto them, ' O ye dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord !' " It is a preaching to the cold grave :
" Thus saith tlie Lord unto the bones, ' Behold, I will cause breath
to enter into yon. and ye shall live. And I will lay sinew^s upon
you, and bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put
breath in you, and ye shall live.'" (Rev. xx. 13,) "And the sea
gave up the dead that were in it." Berwick nuist render back
the Scottish captives, and Colonel Gilbert Ker with them. (Isa.
xliii. 14,) " For thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One
of Israel, ' For your sake, I have sent to Babylon, and have
brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in
the ships.'" (Deut. xxx. 4,) "If any of them be driven out to the
utmost parts of Heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather
thee, and from thence wnll he fetch thee." (Zech. viii. 7, 8,)
" Thus saith the Lord of hosts, ' Behold, I will save my people
from the east countr}^, and from the w^est country ; and I will
bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and
they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in
righteousness.' " Sir, ye are both booked by the Lord who writeth
up the people, (Psal. Ixxxvii. 5, 6,) and counted to the Lord as
one of the house and stock, (Psal. xxii. 30.) Fear not, faint not,
all your hairs are numbered.
It is the desire of the people of God, that as your bonds hitherto
have been exemplar}^, to the strengthening of the feeble, and to
the stopping of the mouth of the adversary, without any declining
to the right or left hand ; so your sufferings, in (he place ye now
go'lo, may be, (as we are confident in the Lord of you, and in
humility boast of his grace in you,) savory, convincing, and like
unto this honorable cause, that will prevail in Britain, contrary to
all the machinations and counsels of devils and men : and though
there were no other ink in the pen I now write with, but some
dewing of ray last cooling blood, this I purpose, (His grace whose
I am, enabling me,) to stand to. Sir, w^e desire to adore no instru-
ments ; yet we conceive the shining and rays of grace, from the
Fountain, Jesus Christ the fulness of the Godhead, bestowed on
sinful men, hold forth the good thoughts of Christ to this poor
land, whose multiplied graves, and whose souls under the allar,
slain by Sectaries and Malignants, cry aloud to Heaven.
I see nothing, sir, if the Lord be not near, though I dare not
say how soon, to awake for the year of Zion's controversy ; (Isa.
xxxiv. 5,) "For my sword shall be bathed in Heaven." Behold,
it shall come down upon England, and on the residue of his ene-
mies in Scotland. Woe is me for England ! That land shall be
soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness ; that
pleasant land shall be a wilderness, and on the dust of their land
pitch ; a judgment upon their walled towns, their pleasant fields,
their strong ships, etc., if they do not repent.
Ye have not, I conceive, seen such searching and tr)dng times
as now these are ; and yet the question will be drawn to a more
narrow state, and multitudes will yet leave the Cause ; for we
526 Rutherford's letters.
took all into the covenant that offered to build with us ; but Christ*
must have but a small remnant ; few nobles, if any, few ministers,
few professors, though our way standeth unchanged, (2 Cor. vi. 8,
9.) "By honor and dishonor, by good report and evil report : as
deceivers, and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well known ; as
dying, and behold we live ; as chastened, and yet not killed."
Neither is this your condition alone, but the experienced lot of all
the saints that have gone before you. It is one and the same
cross of Christ ; but there be sundry faces and diverse circum-
stances in the same remnant, the sufferings of Christ and yours.
Sir, to be delivered to soldiers, and in captivity, looketh like His
suffering of whom Isaiah saith, (chap. liii. 8,) "He was taken
from prison, and from judgment ;" yea, and taken bound, (John
xviii. 12.) When the cause is the truth of God, the lustre and
face of suffering is so much the more lovely, that it hath the hue
and color of Christ's sufferings who endured contradiction of sin-
ners, and despised the shame. Oh it is a great word, " Christ
shamed, and Christ abased !" But thus was the Head, and so are
the members dealt with in the world : and truly anything of
Christ, even the worst of him, (to speak so,) his reproach and
shame, are lovely. Though superstitious love to the material cross
he suffered upon be foolery, and doting upon the holy grave be
cursed idolatry : yet is there a communion with him in his suffer-
ings most desirable ; (1 Pet. iv. 13,) " But rejoice, in as much as
ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings:" in which sense the cup
that his lip touclied hath the sweeter taste, even though death
were in it ; the grave, because he did lie in it, is so much the
softer, and the more refreshful' a bed of rest; and that part of
the sky and clouds that the Beloved shall break through, and come
to judgment, is as lovely a piece of the created heaven as any is,
if we may love the ground he goeth on the better — but all this is
to be understood in a spiritual manner.
The Lord calleth you, sir, upon whom the Spirit of God and his
glory resteth, to put your soul's Amen to this dispensation; and
requireth of us, that our desires follow the now-declared decree of
God, concerning the desolation of our sinful land, so many ways
guilty of a despised Gospel, and a broken Covenant, and that with
all submission. Certainly no man hath failed more in this thing,
than he who writeth to you; for I liave brought my health into
great hazard, and tormented my spirit with excessive grief, for our
present provocations, and the rendings of our kirk ; and I see it is
a challenging '^ of, and a bold pleading against him upon whose
shoulder the government is, (Isa. xxii. 22.) The Father hath put
a glorious trust upon Christ; (ver. 23,) "And I will fasten him as
a nail in a sure place, and he shall be for a glorious throne to his
Father's house, (ver. 24,) " And they shall hang upon him all the
glory of his Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels
of small quantity ; from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels
of flagons." Our unbelieving apprehensions do so quarrel at the
' Refreshing. 2 Accusing.
Rutherford's letters. 527
prosperity of enemies in an evil cause, that we wrestle with de-
feats, spoiling, captivity of the godly, killing of his people, the
wasting of our land, starving and famishing of the kingdom,
which is worse than the sword ; but this is a sinful contradicting
of the Lord's revealed decree. His wisdom saith, " Spoiling and
desolation is best for Scotland," and we say, " Not ;" and so accuse
Christ of misgovernment, and of not being true to the trust put
upon him. But since he doth not drag the government at his
heels, but hath it upon his shoulder; and since the Nail fastened
in a sure place cannot be broken, nor can the smallest vessel fail
to find sweet security in dependence upon him ; since all the
weight of Heaven and earth, of redeemed saints and confirmed
angels is upon his shoulder, I am a fool, and brutish to imagine,
that I can add anything to Christ's special care of, and tenderness
to his people. He who keepeth the basins and knives of his
house, and bringeth the vessels again to the Second Temple,
(Ezra i. 8, 9, 10,) must have a more tender care of his redeemed
ones, than of a spoon, or of Peter's old shoes, which yet must not
be lost in his captivity, (Acts xii. 8.) Oh, for grace to suffer Christ
to tutor his own minors and young heirs ! But we cannot endure
to be under the actings of his government ; we love too much to
be our own. Oh, how sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly in
Christ ! to be out of the creature's owning, and made complete in
Christ ; to live by faith in Christ; and to be once for all clothed
with the created majesty and glory of the Son of God, wherein he
maketh all his friends and followers sharers ; to dwell in Immanuel's
high and blessed land, and live in that sweetest air, where no wind
bloweth, but the breathings of the Holy Ghost ; no seas nor floods
flow, but the pure waters of life, that proceedeth from under tlie
throne, and from the Lamb ; no planting, but the Tree of life,
that yieldeth twelve manner of fruits every month ! What do we
here but sin and suffer? Oh, when shall the nights be gone, the
sliadows flee away, and the morning of that long, long day, with-
out cloud or night, dawn ! The Spirit and the bride say, *' Come."
Oh, when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, and the Bridegroom
say, " Come 1"
Worthy sir, I mind you to the Hearer of prayer ; Oh, help me
in that kind !
The Spirit of Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, May 14, 1651.
LETTER CCCXXIX.
TO THE WORTHY, AND MUCH HONORED COL. GILBERT KER.
Much honored, and worthy Sir, — I know not why the peo-
ple of God should not take notice of the bonds of any who have
blood in readiness to be let out for his cause ; and I judge it was
528 Rutherford's letters.
not you, that ye died not in the undecided controversy which the
Lord of the whole earth hath with the men whom he liath sent
against us.
Dear, and much honored in the Lord, let me entreat you to be
far from the thoughts of leaving this land, — I see it, and find • it,
that the Lord hath covered the whole land witli a cloud in his
anger : but though I have been tempted to the like, I had rather
be in Scotland, beside angry Jesus Christ, knowing that he mindeth
no evil to us, than in any Eden or garden in the earth, — if we can
remain united with the Lord's remnant in the land. He layeth
up wrath for all sorts of adversaries in Britain. Though I should
never see the glory of bis glistering sword in Britain,.! would be
solaced in the innocent thouglits, (far from revenge,) that the saints
shall dip their feet in the blood of the slain of the Lord. And
trul}^, sir, I suppose that ye cannot but come to these thoughts and
weak desires before the Hearer of pra3^ers, for as little as ye think
of and value yourself. For me, if I could mind you in your bonds,
I purpose not to stand to the account ye give, or thoughts ye have
of yourself; though I knew ye are not a whit more or less before
Him who weigheth his own according to the weight of imputed
righteousness, for my apprehensions. Christ cannot mistake
you, — men may — and the calculation and esteem of free grace
maketh you to be what you are. I hope to see you an everlast-
ingly obliged debtor to Him whom ye shall praise, but never pay.
And truly ye have no riches but that debt; and I know that ye
love to be engaged to Jesus Christ, the most excellent of creditors :
much joy and sweetness may 3^e have in standing written in his
book. I desire to do it myself, and I would have you also highly
to esteem the design of Christ, who hath raised the riches of the
glory of so much grace above the circle of the Heaven of heavens,
out of very nothings : and contrived his thoughts of love so, that
lumps of glorified clay should stand before him, for all ages, the
burdens and loaden debtors of free, eternally free grace. Sir, ye
cannot cast the count of the rents of your so great inheritance of
glory. Grace be with you.
Your servant, in his own Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, May 18, 1G51.
LETTER CCCXXX.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — We are fallen in
winnowing and trying times. I am glad that your breath serveth
you to run to the end, in the same condition and wav wherein ye
have walked these twenty years past : it is either the way of peace,
or we are yet in our sins, and have missed the way. The Lord,
1 Feel.
Rutherford's letters. 529
it is true, hath stained the pride of all our glory ; and now, last of
all, the sun hath gone down upon many of the prophets : but
stumble not, men are but men, and God appeareth more and more
to be God, and Christ is still Christ.
Madam, a stronger than I am, had almost stumbled me and
cast me down ; but, oh, what mercy is it, to discern between what
is Christ's and what is man's, and what way the hue, color, and
lustre of gifts of grace dazzle and deceive our weak eyes ! Oh, to
be dead to all things that are below Christ, were it even a created
heaven and created grace ! Holiness is not Christ ; nor are the
blossoms and flowers of the Tree of life the tree itself Men and
creatures may wind themselves between us and Christ ; and,
therefore, the Lord hath done much to take out of the way all
betwixt him and us. There are not in our way now kings, nor
armies, nor nobles, nor judicatories, nor strongholds, nor watch-
men, nor godly professors. The fairest things, and most eminent
in Britain, are stained, and have lost their lustre ; only, only Christ
keepeth his greenness and beauty, and remaineth what he was.
Oh ! if he were more and more excellent to our apprehensions than
ever he was, (whose excellency is above all apprehensions,) and
Btill more and more sweet to our taste. I care for nothing, if so be
that I were nearer to him ; and yet he fleeth not from me ; I flee
from him, but he pursueth. I hear that your Ladyship hath the
same esteem of the despised Cause and Covenant of our Lord, that
ye had before. Madam, hold you there. I dare and would gladly
breathe out my spirit in that way, with a nearer communion and
fellowship with the Father and the Son, and would seek no more,
but that I might die believing: and also I would hope, that the
earth should not cover the blood of the godly slain in Scotland ;
but that the Lord will make inquisition for their blood, when the
suflferings of the saints in these lands shall be fulfilled.
Tho good-will of Him that dwelt in the bush be with you.
Your Ladyship's,
At all observance, in the Lord Jesus, S. R,
Glasgow, Sept. 28, 1651.
LETTER CCCXXXI.
FOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE, AND CHRISTIAN LADY, THE
LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — The Lord is
gracious who keepeth your Ladyship in the furnace, when many
put out their hand to iniquity one way or other. We are now
shouldering and casting down one another in the dark, and the
godly are hidden from the godly. We make our own chains heav-
ier by joining with the Lord's enemies ; hence new sufferings to
all that dare not say a confederacy to those to whom this people
34
530 Rutherford's letters.
say a confederacy, nor fear their fear. As that is my exercise
now, who am not very far from being my lone,' — though I know
in Whom I have beheved, at least, I should know, — in this place ;
so I am afraid that the godly there comply with those declared
enemies of God. It will be our strength to walk between enemies
and Malignants on either side. This is the day of Jacob's trouble,
yet these dry bones can, and must live. I know not if I shall see
it, but I hope to take this quietness and silence of faith, in the
midst of the noises of the alarm for war, to the grave with me,
that the Lord will build upon the Church of Britain and Ireland
a palace of silver, inclosed with boards of cedar.
Dear madam, faint not, the night is almost gone ; for the vision
is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not
lie ; though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, and
not tarry. Madam, weary not ; none can outbid your lodging in
Heaven ; there is more given for it by Him who hath bespoken it
for Jean Campbell, and taken it for her, than any can offer : — the
ransom of blood standeth.
My wife remembereth her respects to your Ladyship. The
child is well. Mrs. Gillespie is well, we hear, but is not here.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his own Lord Jesus Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Jan. 28, 1653.
LETTER CCCXXXII.
FOR GRIZZEL FULLERTON.
Mistress, — Remembering well what relation I had to your
dear mother, (now blessed and perfected with glory,) and being
confident that yourself looketh that way, which, except I be eter-
nally lost, is the way of peace and of life ; I should be ungrateful
to forget those, whom, by the covenant of the Lord, 1 cannot but
remember to God.
I shall speak nothing to you of the present sad di-fferences ; but
if I have, or ever had, any nearness to God, that other way, which
I trust I shall never follow, is the way of man. And, for the
present powers, I suffer from them, and look for more. God hath
a controversy with them ; and, my soul, enter not into their
secrets. Only, I would beseech, request, and obtest you, in the
Lord, and by your appearance before Christ, to follow the way of
the Lord, and the steps trod by the gracious in that place, which
the Lord followed with life and power. My heart is filled with
sorrow, considering what communion with God some of that
country had, and how much they were in edifying and helping
one another in his way, and how little of that there is now in that
country. Your mother kept-in^ life in that place, and quickened
» By myself alone. a Preserved.
^ Rutherford's letters. 531
many about her to the seeking of God. My desire to you is, that
ye should succeed her in that way, and be letting- a word fall to
your brethren and others, that may encourage them to look
toward the way of God : — you will have need of it ere it be long-.
See how you may have a gracious minister, and no neutral there,
to succeed and follow the servant of God, now asleep in the Lord.
There is a great and wide difference between a name of godliness,
and the power of godliness : that is hottest when there are fewest
witnesses. The deadness upon many, and the defection of the
land, is great. Blessed are they who seek the Lord and his face.
I shall entreat you to remember me to your husband, and all
friends. I desire to forget none who are in Christ.
Your brother, in the Lord, S. R.
Edinburgh, March 14, 1653.
LETTER CCCXXXin.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I know that ye
think of an out-going, and that your quartering in time, and your
abode in this life, is short ; " for we flee away as a shadow." The
decHning of the sun, and the lengthening of the shadow, say that
our journey is short and near the end. I speak it, because I have
warnings of my removal. Madam, I know not any against whom
the Lord is not: for he is against "the proud and lofty; the day
of the Lord is upon all the cedars, upon all the high mountains,
upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, upon all the
ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures." I know not
anything comparable to a nearness and spiritual communion with
the Father and the Son Christ. There is much deadness and
witlieredness upon many spirits, sometimes near to God ; and I
wish the Lord have not more to say and to do against the land.
Ye have, madam, in your accounts, mercies, deliverances, rods,
warnings, plenty of means, consolations when refuge failed, when
ye looked on the right hand and behold no man would know you
nor care for your soul, when young and weak manifestations of
God, the out-goings of the Lord for you, experiences, answers from
the Lord ; by all which, ye may be comforted now, and confirmed
in the certain hope, that grace, free grace, in a fixed and established
suiety, shall perfect that good work in you. Happy they who see
not and yet believe.
Grace, grace eternally in our Lord Jesus be with you.
Yojus, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, May 27, 1653.
532 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCCXXXIV.
FOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE, AND TRULY WORTHY GILBERT
KER.
Much honored in the Lord, — How it is with you, may
appear by your letters to some with us : but it is the complaint of
not a few of such, as were in Christ before me, that most of us
inhabit and dwell in a parched land. The people of the Lord are
like a land not rained upon. Though some dare not deny that
this is the garden of the Beloved, and the vineyard that the Lord
doth keep, and water every moment ; yet, oh, where are the some-
times' quickening breathings and influences from Heaven, that
have refreshed his hidden ones? The causes of his withdrawings
are unknown to us. One thing cannot be denied, but that ways
of high sovereignty, and dominion of grace, are far out of the
sight of angels and men ; yea, and so above the fixed way of free
promises, such as, " This do, and he shall breathe and blow upon
his garden ;" as he hath put forth a declaration to his hidden ones
in Scotland, that smarting, wrestlings, prayings, complaining,
gracious missing, cannot earn the visits from on high, nor fetch
down showers upon the desert. It may be, when we are saying
in our graves, " Our bones are dry, and our hope gone," that tem-
poral and spiritual deliverance may come both together ; and that
he will cause us feel, both the one way and the other, the good of
His reign who shortly cometh to the throne ; (Psal. Ixxii. 6,) " He
shall come down like rain upon the mown grass ; as showers that
water the earth." (Ver. 7,) " In his days shall the righteous flour-
ish; and abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth."
(Ver. 12,) " He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, and the
poor also, and him that hath no helper." (Ver. 14,) " He shall
redeem their soul from deceit and violence ; and precious shall their
blood be in his sight." And though we cannot pray home a sweet
season that way, yet Christ must bring summer with him when
he cometh. (Ver. 16,) " There shall be an handful of corn in
the earth upon the top of the mountains ; the fruit thereof shall
shake like Lebanon." I know not if I apply prophecies as I would,
rather than as they are. When the one Shepherd is set over them,
even He who shall stand, — Oh, how much do we lie,— and feed in
the strength of the Lord, the isles, — and this the greatest of them,
— which wait for his law, are to look for that, (Ezek. xxxiv. 26,)
" And I will make them, and the places round about my hill, a
blessing ; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season :
there shall be showers of blessing." How desirable must every
drop of such a shower be ! And, (Hos. xiv. 5,) "I will be as the
dew to Israel : he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots
as Lebanon." (Ver. 6,) " His branches shall spread, and his beauty
' Former, occasional.
Rutherford's letters. 533
shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon," And, (Isaiah
Iv. 13,) " Instead of the thorn shall come up the fii-tree, and in-
stead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree ; and it shall be
to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be
cut off." (Isaiah xli. 19,) " I will plant in the wilderness the cedar,
the shittah-tree, and the oil-tree." (Isaiah xliv. 3,) " I will pour
water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground :
I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine
offspring," And it shall be no lost labor, nor fruitless husbandry ;
(ver. 4,) " they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by
the water-courses." But, when this shall be in Scotland, — and it
must be, — is better to believe than prophesy ; and quietly to hope
and sit still, — for that is yet our strength, — than to quarrel with
him, that the wheels of this chariot move leisurely.
Yet this can hardly say anything to us who do so much please
ourselves in our deadness, and are almost gone from godly thirst
and missing too, being half-satisfied with our witheredness. No
doubt we have marred his influences, and have not seconded nor
smiled upon his actings upon us, nor have we been much of his
strain who, (Psalm cxix.,) doth eight times breathe out that suit,
"duicken me, quicken me." So much are w^e desirous to be
acted upon by the Lord as blocks and stones ; and so prodigal are
we of his motions, as if they were no better to be husbanded : but
it is good, that it is not in our power to blast and undo his breath-
ings ; but his wind bloweth where he listeth. Could we but learn
and cast a quiet spirit under the dewings and showerings of Him
that every moment watereth his vineyard, how happy and blessed
were we ! We neither open, nor do we discern his knocking, nor
feel his hand put in through the keyhole, nor can we give any
spiritual account of the walkings and motions of Christ, when he
standeth behind the wall, when he cometh skipping over the
mountains, when he cometh to his garden and feasteth, when he
feedeth among the lilies, when his spikenard casteth a smell,
when he knocketh and withdraweth, and is nowhere to be found.
Oh, how little a portion of God do we see ! How little study we
God ! how rarely read we God, or are versed in the lively appre-
hensions of that great unknown All in All, the glorious Godhead,
and the Godhead revealed in Christ ! We dwell far from the
well, and complain but dryly of our dryness and dulness : we are
rather dry than thirsty.
Sir, there may be artificial pride in this humility ; but for me, I
neither know what He is, nor his Son's name, nor where he
dwelleth. I hear a report of Christ great enough, and that is all.
Oh ! what is nearness to him? what is that, to be "in God," to
"dwell in God?" What a house must that be ! (1 John iv. 13.)
How far are some from their house and home ? how ill acquaint '
with the rooms, mansions, safety, and sweetness of holy security
to be found in God ! Oh, what estrangement ! what wandering !
what frequent conversing with self and the creature ! " Is not
1 Acquainted.
534 Rutherford's letters.
here the bed shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it?
and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it?"
(Isaiah xxviii. 20.) When shall we attain to a Hving in only,
only God ! and be estranged from all the poor created nothings,
the painted shadow-beings of yesterday ; which, an hour and less
before creation, were dark waste negatives, and empty nothings,
and should so have been for eternity, had the Lord suffered them
to lie there forever ? It is He,' the great " He who sitteth upon
the circle of the earth," (of the world,) "and the inhabitants
thereof are as grasshoppers ; that stretcheth out the Heavens as
a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in ; that
bringeth the princes to nothing, and maketh the judges of the
earth as vanity." (Isaiah xl. 22, 23.) And He, the only He, and
there is no He beside him. (Isaiah xliii. 10, II, and xlv. 5.) Men
or angels ! — they are not any of them a he to him : but a living,
breathing, dying nothing is man at his best, a sick clay-vanity ;
and the angel to him but a more excellent, living, and under-
standing nothing. Yet we live at a distance from him, and we
die and wither, when we are out of God, Oh, if* we knew how
nothing we are without him.
Sir, we desire to mind your bonds ; and are cheered and re-
freshed, that we hear of any of his manifestations, and his out-
goings, which are prepared as the morning to you. We hope,
nor need we desire you not to faint, and are confident that the
anointing that abideth in you, teacheth you so much. Wait upon
the speaking vision : " behold he cometh, behold his reward is
with him, and his work before him."
The only wise God strengthen you with all might, according
to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with
joyfulness.
Yours at all observance, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrew's, July, 1653.
LETTER CCCXXXV.
FOR MR. JOHN SCOTT, AT OXNAM.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — No man oweth more to
the church of God with you, than poor and wretched I : but when
weakness of body, and the Lord by it, did forbid to undertake a
lesser journey to Edinburgh, I am forbidden far more to journey
thither; and believe it, nothing besides this doth hinder. I am
unable to overtake what the Lord hath laid upon me here ; and,
therefore, I desire to submit to sovereignty, and must be silent. If
my prayers and best desires to the Lord could contribute anything
for promoting of his work, my soul's desire is, that the wilderness,
and that place to which I owe my first breathing, in which I fear
' He is often used, in the Scottish dialect, as vsn in Hebrew, as a name of God.
2 That.
Rutherford's letters. 535
Christ was scarce named as touching any leahty or power of god-
Uness, may blossom as a rose.
So desiring and praying that his name may be great among
you ; and entreating that you may beUeve that the names of the
Lord's adversaries sliall be written in the earth, and that whoso
will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem,
to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be
no rain ; and that the Lord will create glory upon every assembly
in Mount Zion ; I rest
Your own brother, in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrew's, June 15, 1G55.
LETTER CCCXXXVL
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I have been so long silent, that I am almost ashamed
now to speak. I hear of your weakly condition of body, which
speaketh some warning to you, to look for a longer life, where ye
shall have more leisure to praise than time can give you here. It
shall be loss to many : but sure, yourself, madam, shall be only '
free of any loss. And truly, considering what days we are now
fallen into, if sailing were not serving of the Lord, (which I can
hardly attain to,) a calm harbor were very good, when storms are
so high. The Forerunner, who hath landed first, must help to
bring the sea-beaten vessel safe to the port, and the sick passen-
gers who are following the Forerunner, safe ashore. Much dead-
ness prevaileth over some ; but there is much life in Him who is
the Resurrection and the Life, to quicken. Oh, what of our hid
Ufe is without us, and how little and poor a stock is in the hand
of some ! Tho only wise God supply what is wanting. The
more ye want, and the more your joy hath run on, the more is
owing to you by the promise of grace. Bygones ^ of waterings
from Heaven, which your Ladyship wanted in Kenmure, Rusco,
the West, Glasgow, Edinburgh, England, etc., shall all come in a
great sum together: — the marriage-supper of the Lamb must not
be marred with too large a four-hours'^ refreshment. Know,
madam, that He who hath tutored you from the breasts, knoweth
how to time his own day-shinings, and love-visits.
Grace, that runneth on, be with you.
Yours, in the Lord, at all observance, S. R.
St. Andrew's.
1 Altogether. 2 By-passed instances. ^ Slight afternoon's.
536 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCCXXXVII.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I confess tbat I have cause to be grieved at my long
silence, or laziness in writing. I am also afflicted to hear, that
such who were debtors to your Ladyship for better dealing, have
served you with such prevarication. Ye know that crookedness
is neither strong nor long enduring; and ye know likewise, that
these things spring not out of the dust. It is sweet to look upon
the lawless and sinful stirrings of the creatures, as ordered by a
most holy Hand in Heaven. Oh, if' some could make peace with
God ! It would be our wisdom, and afford us much sweet peace,
if oppressors were looked upon as passive instruments, like the
saw or axe in the carpenter's hand : they are bidden, (if such a dis-
tinction may be admitted,) but not commanded of God, (as Shimei
was, 2 Sam. xvi. 10,) to do what they do.
Madam, these many years the Lord hath been teaching you to
read and study well the book of holy, holy and spotless sove-
reignty, in suffering from some nigh-hand,^ and some far off.
Whoever be the instruments, the replying of clay to the Potter,
the Former of all, is unbeseeming the nothing-creature : I hope
that he will clear you : but, when Zion's public evils lie not nigh
some of us, and leave no impression upon our hearts, it is no won-
der that we be exercised with domestic troubles : — but I know that
ye are taught of God to prefer Jerusalem to your chiefest joy.
Madam, there is no cause of fainting : wait upon the not-tarrying
vision, for it will speak.
The only wise God be with you, and God, even your own God,
bless you.
Yours, at all observance in God, S. R.
St. Andrew's, June, 1657.
LETTER CCCXXXVIII.
TO MY LADY KENMURE
Madam, — I should not forget you ; but my deadness under a
threatening stroke, both of a falling Church, a broken Covenant, a
despised Remnant, and craziness of body, that I cannot get a piece
sickly clay carried about from one house or town to another, lieth
most heavy on me. The Lord hath removed Scotland's crown,
for we owned not his crown. We fretted at his catholic govern-
ment of the world, and fretted that he would not be ruled and led
by us, in breaking our adversaries : and he maketh us to suffer
1 Oh, that. 2 Near at hand.
Rutherford's letters. 537
and pine away in our iniquities, under the broken government of
his house. It is Hke that it would be our snare, to be tried with
the honor of a peaceable reformation ; we might mar the carved
work of his house, worse than those against whom we cry out.
It is like that he hath bidden us lie on our left-side three hundred
and ninety days ; ^ and yet, so astonishing is our stupidity, that we
moan not our sore side. Our gold is become dim, the visage of
our Nazarites is become black, the sun is gone down on our seers,
the crown is fallen from our head, we roar like bears. Lord save
us from that, " He that made them will not have mercy on them."
The heart of the scribe meditateth terror. Oh, madam, if '^ the
Lord would help us to more self-judging, and to make sure an
interest in Christ ! Ah, we forget eternity, and it approacheth
quickly.
Grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Nov. 20, 1657.
LETTER CCCXXXIX.
FOR MR. JOHN SCOTT, AT O X N A M .
Reverend, and dear Brother, — I saw from C. K. a testi-
mony of your presbytery against toleration, in which ye have been
instrumental : the Lord give strength to do more. I think it both
rare and necessary, and would account it a great mercy, if there
were an addition of a postscript from divers ministers and elders,
out of all the shires of Scotland : it is really the mind of all the
godly and tender in this land. It is believed by some, that the
protesting party hath quite given over the cause. I hope it is not
so ; but the Lord shall be yet victorious in his most despised ones.
Our darkness is great and thick, and there is much deadness ; yet
the Lord will be our light.
Thus recommending you to His grace whose ye are, I am,
Your own brother, in the Lord, S. R.
St, Andrew's, April 2, 1658.
LETTER CCCXL.
FOR MR. JOHN SCOTT, AT OXNAM.
Dear Brother, — Faint not; but be strong in the Lord, and
in the power of his might. I look on it as a rich mercy, that the
Lord is with you, strengthening you to quicken fainters, to warm
and warn any that are cold or dead, or who deaden others ; believe
that it will be your peace in the end. The times are sad ; yet I
persuade myself that the vision will not tarry, but will speak.
1 Ezek. iv. 2 That.
538 Rutherford's letters.
The Lord will loose our captive-bonds. Oh, blessed he, though
alone, who is found fast and constant for the desirable interest of
Christ.
My Jiunible advice would be, that you see to the placing of the
deacon and the ruling elder, or to anything that may weaken the
discipline. Our Second Book of Discipline should be needed ; ses-
sions purged. Oh ! catechizing and personal visiting, and speak-
ing to them sigillatim^ concerning their interest in Christ, and a-^
state of conversion, is little in practice. The practice of family
fasts is scarce known to be an ordinance of God. It were good that
ye should confer with godly brethren in private, concerning the
promoting of godliness, concerning Christian conference, and
praying together, worshipping of God in families, and solitary
fasts.
To His grace who can direct, quicken, and strengthen you, I
commend you, and am
Your loving brother, S. R.
St. Andrew's, •
LETTER CCCXLL
TO MR. JAMES DURHAM, MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL AT
GLASGOW, SOME FEW DAYS BEFORE HIS DEATH.
Sir, — I would ere now have written to you, had I not known
that your health, weaker and weaker, could scarce permit you to
hear or read. I need not speak much ; tfie way ye know, and
have preached to others the skill of the Guide, and the glory of the
home beyond death. And when he saith, " Come and see," it will
be your gain to obey, and go out and meet the Bridegroom. What
accession is made to the higher house of his Kingdom should not
be our loss, though it be real loss to the Church of God : but we
count one way, and the Lord counteth another way. He is infal-
lible and the only wise God, and needeth none of us. Had he
needed the staying in the body of Moses and the prophets, he
could have taken another way. Who dare bid you cast your
thoughts back on wife or children, when he hath said, "Leave
them to me, and come up hither?" Or who can persuade you to
die or live, as if that were arbitrary to us, and not His alone who
hath determined the number of your months? If so it seem good
to him, follow your Forerunner and Guide. It is an unknown
land to you, who were never there before ; but the land is good,
and the company before the throne desirable, and He who sitteth
on the throne is his lone^ a sufficient heaven.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrew's, June 15, 1658.
' Severally, one by one. 2 By himself alone.
Rutherford's letters. 539
LETTER CCCXLII.
FOR MR. JOHN SCOTT, AT O X N A M .
Reverend and dear Brother, — Your letter that came unto
me of August 2d, to be at Edinburgh upon August 2d, was
unknown to me by the subscription; but since it was written for
so honorable and warrantable a truth of Christ, as a testimony
against toleration, if my health would have permitted, and my
daily menacing gravel, I should have come to Edinburgh. What,
either counsel, countenance, or clearing, ye could have had from
the like of me, I cannot say, nor dare I speak much, but with a
reserve of the help of his grace. I desire to desire and purpose by
strength from above, to own that cause, and to join with you and
some in this Church, besides your Presbytery, who will own that
cause. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
This cloud will over; ' could we live by faith, and wait on a speak-
ing and a seemingly delaying vision, the Lord will not tarry.
Grace be with you. Many are with you, but there is One who
is above millions.
Your own brother, S. R.
St. Andrew's, August 8, 1658.
LETTER CCCXLIIL
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I am ashamed of my long silence to your Ladyship.
Your tossings and wanderings are known to Him upon whom ye
have been cast from the breasts, and who hath been your God of
old. The temporal loss of creatures, dear to you there, may be
the more easily endured, that the gain of One who only hath
immortality groweth.
There is an universal complaint of deadness of spirit on all that
know God. He that writeth to you, madam, is as deep in this as
any, and is afraid of a strong and hot battle before time be at a
close : — but no matter if the Lord crown all with the victorious
triumphing of faith. God teacheth us by terrible things in right-
eousness. We see many things, but we observe nothing. Our
drink is sour. Gray hairs are here and there on us. We change
many lords and rulers : but the same bondage of soul and body
remaineth. We live little by faith, but nuich by sense, according
to the times, and by human polic3\ The watchmen sleep, and
the people perish for lack of knowledge. How can we be enlight-
ened, when we turn our back on the Sun? and, must we not be
' Pass over.
640 Rutherford's letters.
withered when we leave the Fountain ? It should be my only
desire to be a minister, gifted with the white stone, and the new
name written on it. I judge it were fit, (now when tall professors,
and when many stars fall from Heaven, and God poureth the isle
of Great Britain from vessel to vessel, and yet we sit and are
settled on our lees,) to consider, (as sometimes I do; but, ah !
rarely,) how irrecoverable a woe it is to be under a beguile ' in the
matter of eternity : and what if I, who can have a subscribed tes-
timonial ^ of many who shall stand at the right hand of the
Judge, shall miss Christ's approving testimony, and be set upon
the left hand among the goats? There is such a beguile,* (Matt,
vii. 22 : xxv. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 ; Luke xiii. 25, 26, 27.) And it be-
falleth many, and what if it befall me who have but too much
art to cozen my own soul and others with the flourish of minis-
terial or country holiness.
Dear Lady, I am afraid of prevailing security. We watch
little, (I have relation mainly to myself,) we wrestle little. I am
like one travelling in the night who seeth a spirit, and sweateth
for fear, and dareth not to tell it to his fellow for fear of increasing
his own fear. However, I am sure, when the Master is nigh his
coming, it were safe to write over a double and a new copy of our
accounts of the sins of nature, childhood, youth, riper years, and
old age. What if Christ have another written representation of
me than I have of myself? — sure he is right : — and if it contradict
my mistaking and sinfully erroneous account of myself, ah !
where am I then? But, madam, I discourage none ; I know that
Christ hath made a new marriage-contract of love, and sealed it
with his blood, and the trembling believer shall not be confounded.
Grace be with you.
,Yours, at all obedience, in Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's, May 26, 1659.
LETTER CCCXLIV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I should be glad that the Lord would be pleased to
lengthen out more time to you, that ye might, before your eyes be
shut, see more of the work of the right hand of the Lord, in revi-
ving a now swooning and crushed Land and Church. Though I
was lately knocking at death's gate, yet could I not get in, but
was sent iDack for a time. It is well if I could yet do any service
to Him ; but, ah, what deadness lieth upon the spirit ! — and dead-
ness breedeth distance from God. Madam, these many years the
Lord hath let you see a clear difference betwixt those who serve
God and love his name, and those who serve him not. And I
judge that ye look upon the way of Christ as the only best way,
1 Beguilement, delusion. 2 Certificate of character.
Rutherford's letters. 541
and that ye would not exchange Christ for the world's god, or
their Mammon, and that ye can give Christ a testimony of Chief
among ten thousand. True it is, that many of us have fallen
from our first love ; but Clnist hath renewed his first love of our
espousals to himself, and multiplied the seekers of God, all the
country over, even where Christ was scarce named, east and west,
south and north, above the number that our fathers ever knew.
But, ah ! madam, what shall be done or said of many fallen stars,
and many near to God complying wofully, and sailing to the near-
est shore? Yea, and we are consumed in the furnace, but not
melted ; burned, but not purged ; our dross is not removed, but
our scum remaineth in us ; and in the furnace we fret, we faint,
and, (which is more strange,) we slumber. The fire burnetii
round about us, and we lay it not to heart. Gray hairs are upon
us, and we know it not.
It were now a desirable life to send away our love to Heaven ;
and well it becometh us to wait for our appointed change, yet so
as we should be meditating thus : — ^" Is there a new world above
the sun and moon ? and is there such a blessed company harping
and singing hallelujahs to the Lamb up above? Why, then, are
we taken with a vain life of sighing and sinning ? Oh, where is
our wisdom, that we sit still laughing, eating, sleeping prisoners,
and do not pack up all our best things for the journey, desiring
always to be clothed with our house from above, not made with
hands !" Ah ! we savor not the things that are above, nor do we
smell of glory ere we come thither; but we transact and agree
with time for a new lease of clay-mansions. Behold ! He cometh.
We sleep, and turn all the work of duties into dispute of events
for deliverance ; but the greatest haste to be humbled for a broken
and a buried Covenant is first and last forgotten : and all our
grief is, the Lord lingereth, enemies triumph, godly ones suffer,
atheists blaspheme. Ah! we pray not; but wonder that Christ
cometh not the higher way, by might, by power, by garments
rolled in blood. Wliat if he come the lower way? Sure we sin
in putting the book in his hand, as if we could teach the Almighty
knowledge. We make haste ; we believe not. Let the only wise
God alone, he steereth well; he draweth straight lines, though we
think and say they are crooked. It is right that some should die
and their breasts full of milk ; and yet we are angry that God
dealeth so with them. Oh, if I could adore him in his hidden
ways, when there is darkness under his feet, and darkness in his
pavilion, and clouds are about his throne ! Madam, hoping, be-
lieving, patient praying is our life. He loseth no time.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, at all obliged observance, in Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Sept. 12, 1659.
I Oh, that.
542 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER CCCXLV.
to his reverend, and dear brethren, mr. guthrie, mr.
traill, and the rest of their brethren imprisoned
in the castle of edinburgh.
Reverend, very dear, and now much honored Prison-
ers FOR Christ, — I am, as to the point of light, at the utmost
of persuasion in that kind, that this is the cause of Christ which
ye now suffer for, and not men's interest. If it be for men, let us
leave it ; but if we plead for God, our own personal safety and
man's deliverance will not be peace. There is a salvation called
"the salvation of God," which is cleanly, pure, spiritual, unmixed,
near to the holy word of God ; it is that which we would seek,
even the favor of God that he beareth to his people ; not simple
gladness, but the gladness and goodness of the Lord's chosen.
And sure, (though 1 be the weakest of his witnesses, and unworthy
to be among the meanest of them, and am afraid that the Cause
be hurt — but it cannot be lost — by my unbelieving faintness,) I
would not desire a deliverance, separated from the deliverance of
the Lord's cause and people. It is enough to me to sing, when
Zion singeth ; and to triumph, when Christ triumpheth. I should
judge it an unhappy joy, to rejoice when Zion sigheth. " Not one
hoof" ' will be your peace.
If Christ doth own me, let me be in the grave in a bloody wind-
ing-sheet, and go from the scaffold in four quarters, to grave or no
grave. I am his debtor to seal with sufferings this precious truth ;
but, oh ! when it cometh to the push, I dare say nothing, consid-
ering my weakness, wickedness, and faintness. But fear not ye.
Ye are not, ye shall not be alone, the Father is with you. It was
not an unseasonable, but a seasonable and necessary duty ye were
about. Fear Him who is Sovereign. Christ is Captain of the
castle and Lord of the keys. The cooling well-spring, and re-
freshment from the promises, are more than the frownings of the
furnace. I see snares and temptations in capitulating, composing,
ceding, minching^ with distinctions of circumstances, formalities,
compliments, and extenuations in the cause of Christ. A long
spoon, the broth is hell's hot: 3— hold a distance from carnal com-
positions ; and much nearness to the Fountain, to the favor and
refreshing light from the Father of lights speaking in his oracles;
— this is sound health and salvation. Angels, men, Zion's elders
eye us; but what of all these? Christ is by us, and looketh on
us, and writeth up all. Let us pray more ; and look less to
men.
Remember me to Mr. Scott, and to all the rest. Blessings be
' Exod. X. 2G. 2 Mincing.
3 In allusion to the Scottish proverb—" They have need of a loner spoon who sup
with the Devil." o »- r
Rutherford's letters. 543
upon the head of such as are separated from their brethren. Jo-
seph is a fruitful bough by a well.
Grace be with you.
Your loving brotlier and companion in the Kingdom and Pa-
tience of Jesus Christ, • S. R.
St. Andrew's, 1660.
LETTER CCCXLVI.
Mr. Rutherford's Judgment, sent to some Brethren, about
petitioning His Majesty ^ after his return, and for owning
such as were censured while about that so necessary a duty.
Reverend, and dear Brethren, — It is a matter of difficulty
to me to write at this distance, not having heard your debates. It
seemeth that the Lord calleth us to give information to the King's
Majesty of affairs. The Lord's admirable providence, in bringing
him to his throne, and laying aside others who were enemies to
the cause and sworn Covenant of God, so that now the govern-
ment is in a right line, is to be adored ; and I judge, (without pre-
scribing,) that some should be sent to His Majesty to congratulate
that providence; and that reason of our being so slow in sending
should be rendered.
2. We should write, not in the name of the Kirk of Scotland,
but in the name of a most considerable number of godly ministers,
elders and professors, who both pray for the king, are obedient to
his laws, and are under the oath of God — The sworn Reforma-
tion.
3. It is better now, than after sentences and trouble, to have
recourse to him who is by place Parens PatricB.
4. We should supphcate in all humility for protection, counte-
nance, far more for lawful liberty to fear the bond of the oath of
the dreadful and most high Lord ; avouching to His Majesty, that
the Lord, his holy name being interposed, will own that Covenant,
and bless His Majesty with a happy and successful reign, in the
owning thereof and kissing of the Son of God. And when the
Lord shall be pleased to grant that to us. which concerneth
religion, the beauty of his house, the propagating of the Gospel,
the government of the Lord's Kingdom, without popery, prelacy,
unwritten traditions and ceremonies; let His Majesty try our
loyalty with what commands he will be pleased to lay on us, and
see if we be found rebellious.
5. We should disclaim such as have sinfully complied with the
late usurpers ; produce our written testimonies against them ; our
not accepting of offices and places of trust from them ; our testi-
monies against their usurpation, covenant-breaking, toleration of
all religions, corrupt sectarian ways, for which the Lord hath
broken them.
» Charles II.
544 Rutherford's letters.
6. We are represented to His Majesty as such as would not
consent that the remonstrance of the western forces should be
condemned by the Commission of the General Assembly : whereas
1. We did humbly desire, that the judicature should not condemn
nor censure that Remonstrance, till the gentlemen were heard,
and their reasons discussed. 2. Whatever demur was as to the
banding or combining part of it, we were and are obliged to believe,
that they had no sectarian design therein, nor levelling intention.
3. They are gentlemen most loyal, and never were enemies to His
Majesty's royal power ; but only desired that security might be
had for religion and the people of God ; persons disaffected to re-
ligion and the sworn Covenant abandoned ; otherwise they were,
and still are willing to hazard lives and estates, for the just great-
ness and safety of His Majesty, in the maiutenance of the true
religion, Covenant, and cause of God. The only difficulty will
be, where to have fit men to send. But as it will be both sin and
shame for us to desert our undeservedly now censured brethren ;
so it will be our sin and reproach sinfully to comply with such
things and courses, as we testified against, and confessed to God.
I can say no more at present, but that I am
Your loving brother, S. R.
St. Andrew's, 1660
LETTER CCCXLVn.
Mr. Rutherford's Judgment of a Draughty or rtiinute of a
Petition, to have been presented to the Conimittee of Estates,
by those Ministers ivho were then jirisoners in the Castle of
Edinburgh., for that other well-known j)etitio)i to His Majesty,
about which they were, xohen seized upon and made prisoners.
But that no man may mistake or judge amiss of persons so fixed in the cause, and
faithful in their generations ; know, that this Draught was not sent to Mr.
Rutherford, as a paper concluded and condescended upon among these
Brethren, whose love to truth made them in all things, so tender, that they were
ever fond to abstain from all appearance of evil ; but it was more like the sug-
gestion of some other men, (wherein was laid before them what kind of ad-
dress would most probably please, waving the just measures of what was simply
duty in their circumstances,) than anything flowing from themselves, as the pro-
duct of a mature deliberation. And secondly, know, (which confirmeth what was
said,) that whatever it was, or whoever gave the rise to it, yet it was never made
use of, nor presented to the Committee of Estates, by any of those faithful men,
whose praise, for their fidelity, fixedness, real and untainted integrity, is in the
churches of Christ.
Dear Brother, — I am, as ye know, straitened as another suf-
fering man ; but dare not petition this Committee : —
1. Because itdraweth us to capitulate with such as have the ad-
vantage of the mount, the Lord so disposing for the present : and
to bring the matters of Christ to yea and no, (ye being prisoners,
and they the powers,) is a hazard.
Rutherford's letters. 545
2. A speaking to them in write, ' and passing in silence the
sworn Covenant, and tlie cause of God, which is the very present
controversy, is contrary to the practice of Christ and the Apostles,
who, being accused or not accused, avouched Christ to be the Son
of God, and the Messias, and that the dead must rise again, even
when the adversary misstated the question. Yea, silence on the
cause of God, which adversaries persecute, seemeth a tacit desert-
ing of the cause, when the state of the question is known to be-
holders : — and I know that tlie brethren intend not to leave the
cause.
3. I know of no offence that you have given, (I will not say
what offence may be taken,) either as to the matter or manner of
your petition : for, if what you have done be a necessary duty laid
aside by others, a duty can never give an offence to Christ, and so
none to men. But Christians will look upon a pious, harmless,
and innocent petition to the Prince, in the matters of the Lord's
honor and good of his Church, though proffered by one or two,
when they are silent whose it is to speak and act, as a seasonable
duty.
4. The Draught of that Petition which you sent me, speaketh
not one word of the Covenant of God ; for the adhering to which
you now suffer, and which is the object of men's hatred; and the
destruction whereof is the great work of the times : and your
silence, in this nick'* of time appearelh to be a non-confession of
Christ before men ; and you want nothing to beget an uncleanly
deliverance, but the profession of silence.
5. There is a promise and real purpose, as the Petition saith, to
live peaceably under the King's authority. But, 1. Ye do not
answer so candidly and ingenuously the mind of the rulers, who,
to your knowledge, mean a far other thing by authority, than ye
do. For ye mean, his just authority, his authority in the Lord, and
his just greatness, in the maintenance of true religion, as in the Cov-
enant, Confession of Faith, and Catechisms, is expressed from the
word of God ; they mean his supreme authority, and absolute pre-
rogative above laws, as their acts make clear, and as (heir practice
is ; for they refused, to such as were unwilHng to subscribe their bond,
to add authority in the Lord, or, just and lawful authority, or, au-
thority as it is expressed in the Covenant: but this Draught of a
Petition, under your own hand, yieldeth the sense and meaning
to them which tjjey crave. 2. That authority for which they con-
tend, is exclusive of the sworn Covenant ; so that except ye had
said, " We shall be subject to the King's authority in the Lord, or
according to the sworn Covenant," ye say nothing to the point in
hand ; and that sure is not your meaning. 3. Whoever promised
so much of peaceable living under His Majesty's authority, leaving
out the exposition of the Fifth Connnandment, as your petition
doth, may, upon the very same ground, subscribe the bond refused
by the godly ; and so you pass from the Covenant, and make
all those by-past actings of this Kirk and State, these years by-
1 Writing. * Juncture.
35
546 Rutherford's letters.
past, to be horrid rebellion ; and how deep that guiltiness draw-
eth, consider.
6. A condemning of the Remonstrance, simply and without
any limitation and distinction, is a condemning of many precious
ones in the land, and a passing from the causes of God's wrath,
which is the chief matter of tlie Remonstrance.
7. That nothing is before your eyes but the exoneration of your
conscience, is indeed believed by the godly who know you ; but
a passing in silence of the honest materials in your former petition
to His Majesty, seemeth to be a deserting thereof, since, in all your
Petition, ye do not once say, ye cannot but adhere to that pious
Petition, as your necessary duty. And, that ye intend in the Pe-
tition the happiness of His Majesty, is also believed.
Dear brother, show to our brethren, that the Lord Christ in
your persons, hath stated a question betwixt liim and the powers
on earth. The only wise God lead you now, when he hath brought
you forth in public, so to act as if ye did see Jesus Christ by you,
and beholding you. It is easy for such as are on the shore, to
throw a counsel to those that are tossed in the sea ; but, only by
living by faith, and by fetching strength and comfort from Clirist,
can ye be victorious, and have right to the precious promises of
the Tree of life, of the hidden Manna, of the gifted Morning-Star,
and the like, made to those who overcome : to Whose strength and
grace, brethren, who desire with me to remember you, do recom-
mend you.
I am, dear brother,
Yours in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrew's, 1660.
LETTER CCCXLVni.
FOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE, MY LADY VISCOUNTESS OP
KENMURE.
Madam, — It is not ray part to be unmindful of you. Be not
afflicted for your brother, the Marquis of Argyll. As to the main,
in my weak apprehension, the seed of God being in him, and love
to the people of God and his cause, it shall be well. The making
of particular reckoning with the Lord, and of peace with God, and
owning of his cause, when too many disown it, will make his peace
with the King the surer. The Lord is beginning to reckon with
such as did forsake his cause and covenant : and until we return
to him, our peace shall not be like a river and as the waves of the
sea. However, the opening of the bosom to take in all the Ma-
ligriants, can produce no better fruits. The Lord calleth us to
flee into our chambers, and shut the doors, till the indignation be
over, (Isaiah xxvi. 20.) The lily among the thorns is so served:
he hideth himself, and our mountain is removed, and we are
troubled ; but the Lord reigneth, let the earth tremble, and let the
Rutherford's letters. 547
earth rejoice. The Lord without blopd broke the yoke of usurping
oppressors and laid them aside : the same Lord can settle throne
and kingdom on the pillars of Heaven. But, oh, the controversy
the Lord hath with Edom and those who covenanted with us and
then sold us ; and with those of whom the Holy Ghost speaketh,
(Lam. ii. 14,) "Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things
for thee ; they have not discovered thine iniquity to turn away thy
captivity, but have seen for thee false burdens, and causes of
banishment." The time of Jacob's suffering is but short, and the
vision will speak. Could we be from under deadness, and watch
unto wrestling and prayer with the Lord, and live more by faith,
we should be more than conquerors. Wait upon the Lord ; faint
not.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, at all respective observance, in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrew's, July 24, 1660.
LETTER CCCXLIX.
for mistress CRAIG, UPON THE DEATH OF HER HOPEFUL SON,
WHO WAS DROWNED WHILE WASHING HIMSELF IN A RIVER
IN FRANCE.
Mistress, — You have so learned Christ, as, now in the fur-
nace, what dross, what shining of faith may appear, must come
forth. I heard of the removal of your son, Mr. Thomas. Though
I be dull enough in discerning, yet I was witness to some spiritual
savoriness of the new birth and hope of the Resurrection, wiiich
I saw in the hopeful youth, when he was, as was feared, a-dying
in this city. And, since it was written and advisedly appointed,
in the spotless and holy decree of the Lord, where, and before
what witnesses, and in what manner, whether by a fever, the
mother being at the bed-side, or by some other way in a far
country, (dear patriarchs died in Egypt ; precious to the Lord,
have wanted burials. Psalm Ixxix. 3,) your safest will be, to be
silent, and command the heart to utter no repining and fretting
thoughts of the holy dispensation of God.
1. The man is beyond the hazard of dispute ; the precious
youtli is perfected and glorified.
2. Had the youth lain year and day pained beside a witnessing
mother, it had been pain and grief lengthened out to you in
many portions, and every parcel would have been a little death;
now His holy Majesty hath in one lump and mass, broughi to
your ears the news, and hath not divided the grief into many
portions.
3. It was not yesterday's thought, nor the other year's statute;
but a counsel of the Lord of old: and "who can teach the
Almighty knowledge ?"
548 Rutherford's letters.
4. There is no way of quieting the mind, and of silencing the
heart of a mother, but godly submission. The readiest way for
peace and consolation to clay-vessels is, that it is a stroke of the
Potter and Former of all things ; and since the holy Lord hath
loosed the grip,' when it was fastened sure on your part, I know
that your light, and I hope that your heart also, will yield. It is
not safe to be at pulling and drawing with the omnipotent Lord.
Let the pull go with him, for he is strong; and say, "Thy will
be done on earth as it is in Heaven."
5. His holy method and order is to be adored ; sometimes the
husband before the wife, and sometimes the son before the mother ;
so hath the only wise God ordered ; and when he is sent before,
and not lost, in all things give thanks.
6. Meditate not too much on the sad circumstances — the mother
was not witness to the last sigh, — possibly, cannot get leave to
wind the son, nor to weep over his grave, and, he was in a strange
land : — there is a like nearness to Heaven out of all the countriea
of the earth.
7. This did not spring out of the dust. Feed and grow fat by
this medicine and fare of the only wise Lord. It is art and the skill
of faith to read what the Lord writeth upon the cross, and to spell
and construct ^ right his sense ; often we miscalP words and sen-
tences of the cross, and either put nonsense on his rods, or burden
his Majesty with slanders and mistakes, when he mindeth for us
thoughts of peace and love — even to do us good in the latter end.
8. It is but a private stroke on a family, and little to the public,
arrows shot against grieved Joseph, and the afflicted ; but, ah !
dead, senseless, and guilty people of God. This is the day of
Jacob's trouble !
9. There is a bad way of wilful swallowing of a temptation,
and not digesting it, or laying it out of memory without any
victoriousness of faith. The Lord, who forbiddeth fainting, for-
biddeth also despising. But it is easier to counsel than to suffer:
the only wise Lord furnish patience. It were not amiss to call
home the other youth.
I am not a little afflicted for my Lady Kenmure's condition.
I desire you, when ye see her, to remember my humble respects
to her. My wife heartily remembereth her to you ; and is
wounded much in mind with your present condition, and suffer-
eth with you.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Aug. 4, 1660.
1 Hold. 2 Construe. 3 Mispronounce.
Rutherford's letters. 549
LETTER CCCL.
FOR MY REVEREND BROTHER, CHRISt's SOLDIER IN BONDS,
MR. JAMES GUTHRIE, MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL AT STIR-
LING.
Dear Brother, — We are very oft comforted with the word of
promise; though we stmiible notahttle at the work of holy provi-
dence ; some earthly men flovuishing as a green herb, and the
people of God counted as sheep for the slaughter, and killed all the
day long ; and yet both word of promise, and works of providence,
are from Him whose ways are equal, straight, holy, and spotless.
As for me, when I think of God's dispensations, he might justly
have brought to the market-cross, and to the light, my unseen and
secret abominations, which would have been no small reproach to
the holy name, and precious truths of Christ ; but in mercy he
hath covered these, and shapen and carved out more honorable
causes of suffering, of which we are unworthy.
And now, dear brother, much dependeth upon the way and
manner of suffering, especially, that liis precious truths be owned
with all heavenly boldness, and a reason of our hope given in
meekness and fear ; and the royal crown, and absolute supremacy
of our Lord .Tesus Christ, the Prince of the kings of the earth,
avouched as becometh : for certain it is that Christ will reign the
Father's King in Mount Zion; and his sworn Covenant will not
be buried. It is not denied, that our practical breach of Covenant
first, and then our legal breach thereof, by enacting the same mis-
chief and framing it into a law, may heavily provoke our sweetest
Lord ; yet there are a few names in the land that have not defiled
their garments, and a holy seed on whom the Lord will have
mercy, like the four or five olive-berries upon the top of the shaken
olive-tree ; and their eye shall be toward the Lord their Maker.
Think it not strange that men devise against you ; whether it be
to exile, — the earth is the Lord's ; or perpetual imprisonment, —
the Lord is your light and liberty ; or a violent and public death, —
for the Kingdom of Heaven consisteth in a fair company of glorified
martyrs and witnesses, of whom Jesus Christ is the chief Witness,
who for that cause was born, and came into the world. Happy
are ye, if you give testimony to the world of your preferring Jesus
Christ to all powers : and the Lord will make the innocency and
Christian loyalty of his defamed and despised witnesses in this
land to shine to after-generations, and will take the Man-child up
to God and to his throne, and prepare a hiding-place in the wilder-
ness for the Mother, and cause the earth to help the Woman. Be
not terrified ; fret not ; forgive your enemies ; bless, and curse not;
for though both ye and I should be silent, sad and heavy is the
judgment and indignation from the Lord, that is abiding the un-
faithful watchmen of the Church of Scotland. The souls under
550 Rutherford's letters.
the altar are crying for justice, and there is an answer returned
ah-eady : — the Lord's salvation will not tarry.
Cast the burden of wife and children on the Lord Christ ; he
careth for you and them ; your blood is precious in bis sight. The
everlasting consolations of the liord bear you up, and give you
hope ; for your salvation, (if not deliverance,) is concluded.
Your own brother, S. R.
St. Andrew's, Feb. 15, 1C61.
LETTER CCCLL
TO MR. ROBERT CAMPBELL.
Reverend, and dear Brother, — Ye know that this is a time
in which all men almost seek their own things, and not the things
of .Tesus Christ. Ye are your lone,' as a beacon on the top of a
mountain ; but fa'inl not, Christ is a numerous multitude himself;
yea, millions. Though all the nations were convened against him
round about, yet doubt not but he will, at last, arise for the cry of
the poor and needy.
For me, I. am now near to eternity, and for ten thousand worlds
I dare not adventure to pass from the Protestation against the cor-
ruptions of the time, nor go alongst with the shameless apostasy
of the many silent and dumb watchmen of Scotland ; but I think
it my last duty to enter a protestation in Heaven, before the right-
eous Judge, against the practical and legal breach of the Covenant,
and all oaths imposed on the consciences of the Lord's people, and
all Popish superstitions and idolatrous mandates of men. Know
that the overthrow of the sworn Reformation, the introducing of
Popery and the Mystery of iniquity, is now set on foot in the
Three Kingdoms ; and whosoever would keep their garments
clean are under that command, "Touch not, taste not, handle
not."
The Lord calleth you, dear brother, to be still "steadfast, un-
movable, and abounding in the work of the Lord." Our royal
kingly Master is upon his journey, and will come, and will not
tarry ; and blessed is the servant who shall be found watching
when he cometh. Fear not men, for the Lord is your light and
salvation. It is true, it is somewhat sad and comfortless that ye
are your lone ; ' but so it was with our precious Master : nor are
ye your lone,' for the Father is with you. It is possible that I
shall not be an eye-witness to it in the flesh ; but I believe He
Cometh quickly who will remove our darkness, and will shine glo-
riously in the Isle of Britain, as a crowned king, either in a for-
mally sworn covenant, or in his own glorious way ; which I leave
to the determination of his infinite wisdom and goodness. And
this is the hope and confidence of a dying man who is longing
and fainting for the salvation of God.
1 By yourself alone.
Rutherford's letters. 551
Beware of the ensnaring bonds and obligations, by any hand-
writ or otherwise, to give unhmited obedience to any authority,
but only in the Lord ; for all innocent self-defence, (which is ac-
cording to the Covenant, the Word of God, and the laudable ex-
ample of the Reformed Churches,) is now intended to be utterly
subverted and condemned : and what is taken from Christ, as the
flower of his prerogative royal, is now put upon the head of a
Mortal Power, which must be that great Idol of indignation that
provoketh the eyes of his glory. Dear brother, let us mind the
rich promises that are made to those that overcome, knowino- that
those that endure to the end shall be saved.
Thus recommending you to the rich grace of God, I remain,
Your affectionate brother, in Christ, S. R.
St. Andrew's, 1G61.
LETTER CCCLTI.
TO ABERDEEN.
Reverend, and dearly beloved in the Lord, — Grace be
to you. and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus
Christ.'
There were some who rendered thanks, with knees bowed to
Him, " of whom is named the whole fanuly in Heaven and earth,"
when they heard of "your work of faith, and labor of love, and
patience of hope in our Lord Jesus ;" and rejoiced not a little, that
where Christ was scarce named in savoriness and power of the
Gospel, even in Aberdeen, there Christ hath a few names precious
to him, who shall walk with him in white. We looked on it, (He
knoweth whom we desire to serve in our spirit, in tlie Gospel of
his Son,) as a part of the fulfilling of that, "The wilderness and
solitary place sliall be glad for theni ; and the desert shall rejoice
and blossom as a rose ;" but now it is more grievous to us than a
thousand deaths, when we hear that you are shaken, and so soon
removed from that which you once acknowledged to be the way
of God.
Dearly beloved, -the sheep follow Christ who calleth them by
name : a stranger they will not follow; but they flee from him, for
they know not the voice of a stranger. Ye know the way. "by
which ye were sealed to the day of redemption ;" and ye received the
Spirit, by the hearing of faith. Part not with that way, except ye
see there be no rest for your souls therein ; neither listen to them
that say, " Many were converted under episcopal as well as under
presbyierial government;" and yet the godly gave testimony
against the bishops ; for the instruments of conversion loathed
episcopacy, with the ceremonies thereof, and never sealed it with
their sufferings. But we shall desire instances of any engaged by
oaths, and by the sufferings of the faithful messengers of God,
552 Rutherford's letters.
and the manifestation of the Lord's presence, in the way ye now
forsake, who yet turned from it, and went one step toward sinful
separation, and did it in that way ye now aim at, and did yet
flourish and grow in grace : but we can bring proofs of many who
left it, and went further on to abominable ways of error. And
you have it not in your power where you shall lodge at night,
having once left the way of God ; and many we know lost peace
and communion with God, and fell into a condition of withering,
and, not being able to find their lovers, were foiced to return to
their first Husband. We shall entreat you to consider what a
stumbling it is to malignant opposcrs of the way and cause of
God, who with their ears heard you, and with their eyes saw you,
so strenuously take part with the godly in their sufferings, and
profess yourselves for religion, truth, doctrine, government of the
house of God, his covenant and cause; if now you build again
what you once destroyed, and destroy what you builded. And will
you not make yourselves, by so doing, transgressors ? How shall
it wound the hearts of the godly, stain the profession, darken the
glory of the Gospel, shake the faith of many, weaken the hands
of all, if ye, and ye first of all in this kingdom, will stretch out
the hand to raze the walls of our Jerusalem, by reason of which the
Lord made her terrible as an army with banners : for, when kings
came and saw the palaces and bulwarks thereof, they marvelled
and were troubled, and hasted away; fear took hold of them
there, and pain as of a woman in travail. And we shall be
grieved, if you shall be heirs to the guiltiness of breaking down
the same hedge of the vineyard, for the which the sad indignation
of God pursueth this day the Royal Family, many nobles, houses
great and fair, and all the prelatical party in these Three King-
doms. And when your dear brethren are weak and fainting, shall
we believe that ye will leave us, and be divided from this so
blessed a conjunction? The Lord Jesus Christ, we trust, will
walk in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks, and be with us, if
ye will be gone from us.
Beloved in the Lord, we cannot but be persuaded better things
of you ; and we will not conceal from you, that we are ignorant
what to answer when we are reproved on your behalf, in regard
that your change to another gospel-way (which the Lord avert) is
so much the more scandalous, that the sudden alteration, unknown
to us before, now overtaketh you, when men come amongst you
against whom the furrows of the fields of Scotland do complain.
Forget not, dear brethren, that Christ hath now the fan in his
hand, and that this is also the day of the Lord, which shall burn
as an oven ; and, that Christ now sitteth as a refiner of silver,
purifying the sons of Levi, and purging them as gold and silver,
that they may oiTer unto the Lord an offering of righteousness ;
and, that those who keep the word of his (not their own) patience,
shall be delivered from the hour of temptation, that shall come on
all the earth to try them.
If ye exclude all non-converts from the visible city of God, in
Rutherford's letters. 653
which, daily, multitudes in Scotland, in all the four quarters of
the land, above whatever our fathers saw, throng into Christ, shall
they not be left to the lions and wild beasts of the forest, even to
Jesuits, Seminary-priests, and other seducers? ' For the magistrate
hatli no power to compel them to hear the Gospel, nor have ye
any church-power over them, as ye teach : and they bring not
love to the Gospel and to Christ, out of the womb with them ; and
so they nuist be left to embrace what religion is most suitable to
corrupt nature.
Nor can it be a way approven ' by the Lord in Scripture, to ex-
communicate from the Visible Church, (which is the office-house
of the free grace of Christ, and his draw-net,) all the multitudes
of non-converts, baptized, and visibly within the Covenant of
Grace, which are in Great Britain, and all the reformed churches;
and so to shut the gates of the Lord's gracious calling upon all
these, because they are not, in your judgment, chosen to salvation,
when once you are within yourselves. For how can the Lord
call Egypt his people, and Assyria the work of his hands, and all
the Gentiles, (who for numbers are as the flocks of Kedar, and the
abundance of the sea,) the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his
Christ, if you number infants, as many do, and all such as your
charity cannot judge converts, as others do, among heathens and
pagans who have not a visible claim and interest in Christ? The
candlestick is not yours, nor the house ; but Christ fixeth and re-
moveth the one, and buildeth or casteth down the other, according
to his sovereignty. We in humility judge ourselves, though the
chief of sinners, the sons of Zion and of the seed of Christ: if ye
remove from us, and carry from hence the candlestick, let our
Father be Judge, and show us why the Lord hath bidden ye come
out from among us. We look upon this Visible Church, though
black and spotted, as the hospital and guest-house of sick, halt,
maimed, and withered, over which Christ is Lord, Physician, and
Master ; and we would wait upon those that are not yet in Christ,
as our Lord waited upon us and you both. We, therefore, your
brethren, children of one Father, cannot but, with tears and ex-
ceeding sorrow of heart, earnestly entreat, beseech, and obtest you,
by the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, by his sufferings and precious
ransom which he paid for us both, by the consolations of his Spirit,
by your appearance before the dreadful tribunal of our Lord Jesus;
yea, and charge you before God and the same Lord Jesus ; " who
shall judge the quick and the dead, at his appearing, and in his
Kingdom ;" break not the spirits and hearts of those to whom ye
are dear as their own soul ; forsake not the assemblies of the peo-
ple of God ; let us not divide.
Not a few of the people of God in this shire of Fife, in whose
name I now write, dare say, if ye depart, that ye will leave Christ
behind you with us, and the Golden Candlesticks, and will cast
yourselves, we much fear, out of the hearts and prayers of thou-
sands dear to Jesus Christ in Scotland. Therefore, before ye fix
' Approved.
554 Rutherford's letters.
judgment and practice on any untrodden path, let a day of humil-
iation be agreed upon by us all, and our Father's mind and will
inquired, through our one common Saviour; and let us see one
another's faces at "best conveniency ; and plead the interest of
Christ, and be comforted, and not stumbled ' at your ways.
So, expecting your answer, we shall pray that the God of peace,
who brouglit again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shep-
herd of the sheep through the blood of the Everlasting Covenant, ^
may make you perfect in every good work to do his will; work-
ing in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus
Christ ; and 1 shall remain,
Your affectionate brother, in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrew's.
i Made to stumble.
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